
Germany v Brazil, the defending champions again the record World Cup winners. Bernd Leno and Julian Brandt watched the kick-off from the subs' bench at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. An intense and hard-fought encounter in front of 71,000 fans ended in a 1-0 win for the South American side. Gabriel Jesus netted the winner for the Selecao eight minutes before half-time – goalkeeper Kevin Trapp got to the ball but was unable to keep out the header from the Manchester City striker. Brandt replaced Leroy Sané on the hour mark to earn his fourteenth cap for Germany.
Club coach Heiko Herrlich was probably not disappointed that Charles Aránguiz and Panos Retsos were not in the starting line-ups for Chile in Denmark and Greece against Egypt after the pair had played for 90 minutes on Saturday. They ended up watching the games that ended in a 0-0 draw for Chile and a 1-0 win for Greece. Julian Baumgartlinger once again captained Austria for a friendly in Luxembourg. The result of the match was a 4-0 victory for Austria with 'Baumi' coming off on 65 minutes
The Germany U21 only managed to draw 0-0 in the Euro qualifier in Kosovo. The captain Jonathan Tah was not in the squad due to a problem with his back, Benjamin Henrichs produced another reliable performance at right back as he went the full distance. The goalless draw did not live up the expectations of the Germany team but Stefan Kuntz's men remain top of Group 5 with seven of ten games played.
For the Germany U19s led by skipper Kai Havertz the final match in the Euro qualifiers against the Netherlands was a decider: Germany needed to win and they could not afford a victory for Norway over Scotland in the other game. The night in front of 3,600 fans in Ahlen ended in disappointment for the hosts after a dramatic game. Germany produced an impressive performance to win 4-1 but Norway came back from 4-2 down to win 5-4 in the last minute to deny Germany a place in the European Championship finals in Finland in the summer. The Germany team left the pitch with heads bowed. "Nobody really knows how to deal with the situation. I really feel sorry for the team," said the downhearted Germany coach Meikel Schönweitz. Kai Havertz had a good game scoring the opener and converting a penalty to make it 4-1 – his seventh goal in eight games for the Germany U19s. Atakan Akkaynak and Sam Schreck watched the match from the bench.


Attacking midfielder Paulina Bartz is leaving Bayer 04 Leverkusen for good on a permanent move to Hamburger SV in the Google Pixel Women’s Bundesliga. The 21-year-old, who was on loan to the newly promoted side in the winter, originally had a contract to 2027.
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The Bayer 04 Football School opened in 2007 – now this successful programme is getting a new name and a new logo: with immediate effect, the Bayer 04 Football School powered by BarmeniaGothaer is becoming the Bayer 04 Football Academy powered by BarmeniaGothaer.
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Rüdiger Vollborn has been at the club for 40 years, he holds the record number of Bundesliga appearances for the club (401) and is the only Bayer 04 player to have won both the UEFA Cup (1988) and the DFB Pokal (1993). And the Berliner stayed with the Werkself after ending his impressive playing career as he worked as a goalkeeping coach for the following nine years. Vollborn now works under the Bayer Cross as a fan liaison officer and club archivist. Since February 2021, the personal Black and Red lexicon takes Werkself fans under the heading of 'Rudi recounts...' on a brief trip through the history of Bayer 04 every month…
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The sustainable use of the BayArena seats removed as part of the current stadium upgrade has taken on a new dimension: Following on from numerous Bayer 04 fans receiving their ‘Undefeated Champions seats’ and various clubs and community organisations from Leverkusen and the wider region having collected the dismantled seats, Blau-Gelbe Kreuz e.V. also made their way to the BayArena recently. The German-Ukrainian aid organisation took away around 2,100 seats; in Ukraine, these will be used to upgrade the sports infrastructure of two clubs.
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