Veteran coach Jupp Heynckes will return for a third stint at Bayern Munich, taking over from Louis van Gaal in the offseason.
Heynckes returns to a team that looks unlikely to defend its Bundesliga title in Van Gaal's second season, which prompted the club to end the Dutchman's contract one year early.
The move was expected after Heynckes announced this week he will not extend his contract at Bayer Leverkusen.
Leverkusen was second in the Bundesliga and can keep Bayern from clinching automatic qualification for next season's Champions League.
The teams play each other on April 17 in Munich in a showdown that could decide which of them finishes second.
''Jupp Heynckes will do his best so that we reach the Champions League this season and that we finish ahead of Bayern,'' Leverkusen sports director Rudi Voeller said.
Bayern was fourth, seven points behind Leverkusen and two points behind Hannover. The team finishing third in the Bundesliga enters the qualifying stage for the Champions League.
Bayern was 14 points behind Borussia Dortmund with seven matches to play.
In Van Gaal's first season, Bayern won the domestic double and reached the final of the Champions League.
This year, Bayern lost in the semifinals of the German Cup to Schalke and was eliminated from the Champions League in the round of 16 by Inter Milan, which also beat Bayern in last season's final.
Heynckes came out of retirement to coach Bayern for five games after the firing of Juergen Klinsmann before the club hired Van Gaal.
Heynckes first coached Bayern from 1987-91 and did such an admirable job of calming passions after the short but turbulent Klinsmann era that he was promptly hired by Leverkusen.
''Jupp Heynckes was our preferred candidate,'' Bayern chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said.
Heynckes, 65, signed a two-year contract.
''I was already twice coach at Bayern and I always liked the work atmosphere there,'' Heynckes said.
''Apart from good personal relationships to the people in charge at Bayern, I was always impressed how professionally this club was managed.''
Heynckes' job will be to make sure Bayern qualifies for the Champions League - and then aim to play the 2012 final at its home stadium.
Heynckes won the Champions League with Real Madrid in 1998 and had two Bundesliga titles in his first stint at Bayern.
