Getting ahead or staying afloat? How Visma-Lease a Bike's low-key rider recruitment strategy for 2026 could still help keep the team on top

In many ways, 2025 was the year of the comeback for the men's team at Visma-Lease a Bike – and that, in turn, will inevitably have something both on how they tackle 2026, and how their recruitment strategy for next year can be evaluated.

After a clean sweep of the Grand Tours in 2023, culminating in all three top spots in that year's Vuelta, Visma's failure to claim more than one podium position – with Jonas Vinegaard as a clearly defeated runner-up in the Tour de France – in 2024 was notable. The downward trend could have continued, but instead in 2025 Visma turned the tables again to capture both Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España in a single year. First Simon Yates claimed the overall of a three-week stage race for the first time since 2018 in Italy, then at the end of the summer Jonas Vingegaard did the same in the 2025 Vuelta a España, in his case for his first overall GT win since the Tour de France in 2023. And that wasn't all.

Seven months after his terrible 2024 Vuelta crash, Wout van Aert netted hugely impressive – and challenging – stage triumphs on the strade bianche of Tuscany in the Giro d'Italia and then again on the cobbles of Montmartre in the Tour de France. Equally, Christophe Laporte was able to return to his winning ways after almost an entire year out for the count with illness in the late-season Tour of Holland. Overall, having dropped to 32 wins in 2024 from 69 in 2023, 2025 saw Visma pull their global total back up to 40, including a repeat GC victory in Paris-Nice for Matteo Jorgenson and no less than 11 wins apiece for sprinter Olav Kooij and new-kid-on-the-block Matthew Brennan.

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To achieve so much in the teeth of the crushing superiority of UAE Team Emirates-XRG – with their total of 97 victories and an all-conquering leader like Tadej Pogačar – was nothing short of remarkable. But it also begs the question of how much higher can Visma-Lease a Bike bounce in 2026? Or is consolidation of their current standings their most realistic option?

Key to answering that (at least in part) is the transfer market, and it's fair to say that globally Visma-Lease a Bike are streamlining their operations and losing a lot more firepower than they are gaining.

The exit of a well-established sprinter like Kooij, whose double-digit tally in 2025 alone included stages in the Giro d'Italia, Tirreno-Adriatico, the Renewi Tour and the Tour de Pologne, removes a winner of over a quarter of Visma-Lease a Bike's final 2025 victory total. On top of which, at 24, his second place in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and eighth place in Milano-San Remo, not to mention sixth in Gent-Wevelgem in 2024, speak volumes about his potential to shine in the Spring Classics.

The exit of a former Paris-Roubaix winner and hugely experienced Dylan van Baarle for Soudal-QuickStep also means Visma will be bereft of one of their top one-day options next spring, while the departure of Tiesj Benoot, sixth in Flanders last year, is another big blow for their cobbled Classics line-up. Cian Uijtdebroeks may have not lived up to expectations in 2025 because of illness in 2025, but he is yet another high-profile loss.

As for team workers, Attila Valter and Tosh van der Sande are both leaving the Visma building, too – the Belgian retiring, the Hungarian heading for Bahrain Victorious – meaning the squad loses both valued domestiques in the stage races and Classics respectively. The list continues with the retirement of as experienced a racer as Dan McLay, signed as a lead-out man for Kooij, is yet another blow, while compatriot Thomas Gloag's move to Q36.5 sees the team witness an exit of a resourceful young rider.

By this point, in other teams you'd be talking about a serious brain drain. Fortunately for Visma-Lease a Bike, they have a very deep roster, and in many ways they can afford to take such hits and still remain a major contender in plenty of different arenas. Vingegaard's Vuelta victory gives him renewed motivation to return to the GT fray once again with Pogačar, whilst Simon Yates' Giro triumph has put the British veteran back on the GC map with a vengeance. Equally, while one of the team's top US riders, all-rounder Matteo Jorgenson, has maintained his enviable degree of versatility both for GC battles and for the Classics. Colorado's Sepp Kuss has surely not said his last word when it comes to standout performances in the high mountains, either.

On top of that, if Kooij's success in 2025 was more a process of consolidation, the stunning progress of Matthew Brennan in his first year as a pro creates all sorts of options for the young Briton. At the other end of the spectrum, Wout van Aert continues to demonstrate that on a good day, his capacity for sporting brilliance remains undimmed. Even if the tactical disaster that was the 2025 Dwars door Vlaanderen, when three Visma-Lease a Bike riders were out-powered by EF Education-Easy Post's Neilson Powless, can't be ignored, Van Aert's fourth places in this year's Flanders and Paris-Roubaix hold out real hope that he can clinch his long-sought second Monument in 2026. Nor can the steady progress of Ben Tulett through the ranks, culminating in a very promising Vuelta a España support role for Jonas Vingegaard, be ignored.

But the reality is that the expectations for top results are therefore mainly set to hinge on those already well-integrated into the Visma-Lease a Bike organisation in 2026, and the media spotlight will fall just as intensely on Vingegaard as usual, above all. Meanwhile, the team's eight new recruits to date will likely mostly be playing team roles or finding their feet in the WorldTour, at least in the first half of the season. Evaluating their success will only really be possible by the end of the year, in terms of how Visma perform collectively – and then in 2027 and beyond.

The Classics and the domestiques

At 32, Owain Doull's signing for Visma-Lease a Bike sees the Welshman brought in to play a key role as a Classics domestique, where he will be expected to provide as much backing as possible for Wout van Aert and Matteo Jorgenson. Promising early results in Belgian one-day races in his career meant it had been thought that Doull could shine in his own right, but after a fairly low-profile series of performances at EF Education-EasyPost, his skill set is now seen more as a team worker. As a result, it could well be that Doull now settles more into a position of providing cover for Visma's Belgian and American team leaders.

The same goes, up to a point, for Timo Kielich, although rather than the track, the former Alpecin-Deceunink racer has a past in cyclocross and MTB. Given he's only been racing on the road full-time for two years, he's clearly not hit any ceiling in terms of potential success, and he's already won a couple of minor Classics in his own right, too. So it would seem like his job description could be more one of getting in breakaways, perhaps, than initially projected for Doull.

Yet another rider cast into a similar role, but likely in the hillier Classics and stages will be VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè's Italian veteran Filippo Fiorelli. Albeit in his early 30s, Fiorelli said that Visma-Lease a Bike think he can take another big step up with his WorldTour debut, where – like Doull and Kielich – he'll be looking after the top names. His long track record at avoiding crashes, as well as established talent for climbing, also added to the team's interest in signing him.

"They told me I'll be the last man for [Matthew] Brennan and [Wout] van Aert, but I'll also have some personal opportunities," Fiorelli said in a press release. "Since I'm a fast rider, they'll leave me room to play my cards when the chance arises."

Albeit with a radically different background, three-times French National Time Trial Champion Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) is expected to play a similar role to Fiorelli: make the most of his own talents to rack up a win or three and then work in a team role in the hillier Classics and stage races as well.

Armirail is an intriguing character, popping out from under the radar in everything from breakaways in the Itzulia Basque Country – which netted him the KoM classification there this April – to last-ditch efforts for victory in the Critérium du Dauphine's transition stages. On top of that, when it comes to setpiece bids for victories in individual time trials, he's one of the most consistently reliable performers in the French peloton.

The new young guns

Apart from a partial reworking of their domestique roster, Visma's other big change for 2026 will be the arrival of new young talent, both bringing on riders from their development squad and from outside the team.

Mattio Pietro and Tim Rex, both 21, are from Visma's feeder team. Pietro has already shown a great deal of promise in one-day racing, being a former U23 Italian National Championships podium finisher and also taking fifth in the Paris-Roubaix Espoirs this year. He also claimed a top-five result in one stage in the prestigious Alpes Isère Tour.

Davide Piganzoli, on the other hand, has already raced for two years as a pro with Team Polti VisitMalta. The 23-year-old has taken some very promising results in the Giro d'Italia as well, claiming 13th and 14th overall, as well as a stage win and the overall at the 2.2 Tour of Antalya.

While Piganzoli is expected to develop further as a GC rider – "perhaps as a support rider for Jonas [Vingegaard] or Simon [Yates]," observed fellow-Italian and Visma rider Edoardo Affini – fellow new signing German Anton Schiffer is seen as something of a wildcard, following a promising career in triathlon. Winner of a summit finish stage of the Sibu Tour this summer with the small Bike Aid squad, the 25-year-old only began racing on the road fully from 2022 onwards. But he's already shown he's a very fast learner.

The addition of new young talent isn't limited to the team roster, incidentally. Visma-Lease a Bike also confirmed this autumn that they've added 32-year-old Luxembourger Gaëtan Pons to their list of sports directors. Pons has previously been working with Leopard ProCycling and the Unibet Rose Rockets squad for the last six seasons. Following the addition of Jesper Mørkøv to the sports director roster in 2024 and the Dane's rapidly successful impact on race strategy in the Vuelta a España, and when working with Matthew Brennan, Pons certainly has some good new wheels to follow, too.

The verdict

Two more spots could potentially yet be filled at Visma-Lease a Bike for 2026 before they reach their maximum of 30. However, rather than looking at their new recruits to hit the ground running, with the possible exception of Armirail in the time trials and the odd breakaway, what will likely impact the most next season in Visma's quest to stay at the top of the WorldTour game is how their established big hitters can perform. For the most part, the new recruits' contribution will probably be an indirect one, and anything more will be a bonus.