I thank you for twelve years of commitment, battle and passion for my club. Now you are ending your career together with your brother Sven – as is fitting for twins. With you I always knew what I'd get on the pitch. I loved watching you play!
For your future, I wish good health for you and your family, a role that fulfils you and one or two visits to the BayArena. Whenever we two 'football pensioners' meet again, you can tell me whether the legend is right. All the best, Lars!
The video clip shows you one or two highlights from Lars' twelve years at Bayer 04.
21 May is also the 25th anniversary of another end of a career. 2 days after the relegation thriller against FC Kaiserslautern, Rudi Völler played his personal farewell game at the Ulrich Haberland Stadium. In front of a full house, 'Rudi's friends' played against Germany, the future you champions of Europe, and lost narrowly (1-2).
In the morning, Rudi asked me to come to the game as the second goalkeeper amongst his invited friends had to cry off at the last moment. Rudi played alongside his friends in the first half and with the national team in the second half and that was against me because I was allowed to play in the second half. I knew Rudi would be substituted on 70 minutes and that would obviously be after a goal if possible.
After I pulled off two terrific saves within a few minutes to keep out a shot and a header from Rudi, time was getting tight. The ball came into the penalty area around 75 minutes, I saw Rudi unmarked in front of me and he headed straight at my legs. I didn't manage to hold onto the ball and it ended up in the back of the net. So Rudi was able to do his well-deserved lap of honour.
Heiko Scholz was born on 7 January 1966 in Görlitz. His first club as a youth player was Dynamo Görlitz. From there, he moved up to the sports school in Dresden and played in the youth teams at SG Dynamo Dresden from 1978-1982. Not considered good enough, Scholle, as he was nicknamed, had to leave the sports school to play his last two youth years at ISG Hagenwerder. Via BSG Chemie Leipzig and 1.FC Lokomotive Leipzig, who Heiko won the DDR Pokal with in 1987 and he also reached the European Cup Winners' Cup final (a 1-0 defeat against Ajax), his path finally led him back to his favourite club, Dynamo Dresden. For one million Deutschmarks, the highest transfer fee ever paid for a player in the former GDR, he moved from Lok Leipzig to the capital of Saxony in 1990.
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Stefan Kießling was born on 25 January 1984 in Lichtenfels, Franconia. Even as a young boy, he spent countless hours on the football pitches of his home town, chasing after the ball and dreaming of playing football. His parents supported him, but they bring him up in a down-to-earth manner - hard work, honesty and modesty are values that characterise him from an early age. His talent became apparent early on, but his ambition was even more striking. Kießling always wants to improve, wants to give more than others.
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On Sunday 26 January 1936, the local derby between relegation-threatened BV Wiesdorf and league leaders SSV ‘Bayer’ Leverkusen took place in the first district league of the Rhein-Wupper district. On the old BV Wiesdorf pitch, where the Leverkusen job centre is today, 1,800 spectators gather to watch the match.
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It is Friday, 31 January 1986, the derby in Cologne is coming up and we're full of confidence after the home win against Hamburg SV a week earlier, having turned a 2-0 deficit at the break into a 3-2 victory. In particular, the Greek amateur player Minas Hantzidis, who came on as a half-time substitute, turned the game around. Two goals from Bum-kun Cha and a penalty from Christian Schreier gave us two important points in the battle for a UEFA Cup place. We are one point behind the North Germans in fifth place in the table, six points ahead of our neighbours from Cologne.
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In this video you can see impressive and important goals in Bayer 04 history from the month of January. It's not always about the beauty of the goals, but also a reminder of special games and players.
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