Mesut Özil (Arsenal) gave the World Cup winners of 2014 the lead on 11 minutes in Klagenfurt on Saturday night before the Austrians, coached by former Bayer 04 player and full of Bundesliga stars, turned the game round in the second half – much to the annoyance of Joachim Löw: "I'm disappointed with the defeat as we didn't do a lot of what we set out to. We had a decent first half but then we increasingly lost our way and nothing went right after that," said the Germany coach after the game. Martin Hinteregger (FC Augsburg) levelled on 53 minutes with Alessandro Schöpf (FC Schalke) putting the hosts ahead on 69 minutes.
The match kicked off at 19.43 instead of 18.00 due to severe weather conditions with the fixture briefly under threat of being abandoned. Leverkusen's Julian Brandt started on the right side of midfield but the 22-year-old failed to convert chances on 20 and 39 minutes thereby missing the chance to score his second goal in his fourteenth international appearance before being replaced by Timo Werner on 67 minutes. "I was determined to do my best. I could have put one or two chances away," said Brandt. The Werkself number ten is relaxed ahead of the announcement of the final Germany squad: „"I'm relatively relaxed and I'll wait and see what happens on Monday."
Brandt was not the only Werkself player to appear in front of the 30,000 crowd at the Wörthersee Stadium. The hosts were skippered by Julian Baumgartlinger in defensive midfield for the full 90 minutes and Aleksandar Dragovic , recently on loan at Leicester City, played in a back three. Both were able to celebrate the first Austria win against Germany since 1986. "The decisive factor was we wanted it more in the second half," was the verdict of Austria captain Baumgartlinger.
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 working 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…
Show more
Bayer 04 host top French club Marseille at the BayArena on matchday four in the 2026/27 UEFA Europa League group stage. The match kicks off on Thursday 5 November at 21:00 CET. The latest information on ticket sales.
Show more
The BAYER 04 HILFT Day is celebrating an anniversary: for the tenth year running, a large number of employees of the Bundesliga club have been getting involved in a community project in Leverkusen and the surrounding area. Following the refurbishment of the city library last year, this time around some 70 staff members rolled up their sleeves to help out at the Bunker Youth Centre in Leverkusen-Wiesdorf. With the support of the Lebenshilfe workshops in Leverkusen and partner Coca-Cola, a rubber football pitch was laid, a Bayer 04-style lounge was created and other projects were carried out. Werkself players and coaching staff also gave their all.
Show more
Bayer 04 Leverkusen and sponsors club partner NRG24 are continuing their partnership, which has been in place since the summer of 2023. The Bundesliga football club and the energy consultancy firm have extended their successful partnership until 30 June 2027.
Show more
