UEFA has appointed the Italian referee Maurizio Mariani for tonight's match against Club Brugge. The 40-year-old has previously refereed one match involving the Werkself – the 3-2 away win at OGC Nice in the group stage of the Europa League in the 2020/21 season. Mariani will be assisted by his fellow countrymen Fabiano Preti and Daniele Bindoni on the touchline and Paolo Valeri is the VAR official. Have a good game!
“Never change a running system,” appears to be the maxim for the Belgians in the current Champions League season: Brugge head coach Carl Hoefkens has only made three changes to his starting line-up with only Benfica making fewer (one). In contrast, the Werkself have made 14 changes to their starting eleven in the five previous group matches.
Moreover: Bayer 04 and Club Brugge have only previously faced each other twice on the European stage. And the Belgians went unbeaten both times: There was a 1-1 draw in the UEFA Cup in October 2006 and at the start of this Champions League campaign, Club Brugge beat the Black and Reds 1-0 in the first group match. The Hoefkens team were able to win at home but now the Belgians are on the road – and Brugge have only won one of the previous 15 away matches in Europe against German clubs (four draws, ten defeats). That one victory came on the last visit to Germany: A 2-1 win at RB Leipzig was achieved in the group stage of the Champions League last term.
Club Brugge are possibly the surprise package in the current Champions League campaign: They started in Group B as the supposed underdogs but the Hoefkens team are currently top of the group with ten points from the first five matches (three wins, one draw). The Belgian side are already certain of progress to the Round of 16 in the Champions League – through to the knockout stages for the first time in the history of Club Brugge. The Belgians had kept clean sheets up to the last match when they suffered a 4-0 defeat against Porto. Although they are through to the next round, Brugge are not certain of winning the group so they will endeavour to produce another convincing performance in tonight's game against the Werkself.
The Hoefkens team are currently third in the Jupiler Pro League with 32 points. They clocked up a 4-2 win in the last outing against KV Oostende currently lying fourteenth in the table. Not just the three points but the committed desire to win were evident in that game: They gave away a 2-0 lead through their own mistakes but showed courage and finally secured a deserved 4-2 win. More information on today's opponents from West Flanders can be found in our lowdown on the next opponents.
Anybody wanting information ahead of the game between the Alonso team and the Hoefkens eleven can catch up with the new Werkself LIVE. The matchday magazine, providing stats and facts on the clash with the club from West Flanders, is available at the BayArena. Alternatively it is available online free of charge HERE.
Anybody not able to make the match against Club Brugge can tune in to Werkself Radio. The audio broadcast starts 30 minutes before kick-off with commentary provided by Cedric Pick and Niko Hartmann. As usual, the latest information is available via live text so you do not have to miss any of the action against the Belgian side. Both Werkself Radio and the live text service are available at bayer04.de and on the Bayer 04 app.
There are further problems with travelling to and from the game on public transport due to the suspension of the S-Bahn service in and around Leverkusen-Mitte station. Further up-to-date information can be found on the websites of the Deutsche Bahn and wupsi.
After six and a half years, Exequiel Palacios is leaving the Bundesliga and moving from Bayer 04 to the Premier League. The Argentine, who as a Werkself player won the World Cup with his national team four years ago and finished as runners-up at this summer’s tournament, will play for newly promoted English side Ipswich Town with immediate effect. The 27-year-old, whose contract in Leverkusen was due to run until 30 June 2030, joined Bayer 04 in January 2020 as a promising young talent. He steadily developed into one of the best defensive midfielders in the German top flight.
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When Exequiel Palacios moved from the Argentinian club River Plate to Bayer Leverkusen on 1 January 2020, the then 21-year-old could not have imagined just how successful the next six and a half years would be for him. Pala, as he is known, had already won the Copa Libertadores – the most prestigious competition in South American club football – with River Plate. But there were still so many more trophies to come.
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To mark Exequiel Palacios’s departure, we’ve put together a compilation of the midfielder’s finest and most important goals from his six-and-a-half years at the club.
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Newly promoted SV 07 Elversberg will begin the 2026/27 season as Bundesliga club number 59. The Saarland club start their first Bundesliga campaign at home to the Werkself on Saturday, 29 August (kick-off 15:30 CEST) at the URSAPHARM Arena on Kaiserlinde, which is currently being rebuilt. For one Leverkusen player in the ‘Elv’ line-up, the clash will be a special reunion. The lowdown on our next opponents.
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Ernest Poku is leaving Bayer 04 Leverkusen to play in the Turkish Süper Lig. The club has loaned the Dutch winger to Beşiktaş for one year. If certain criteria are met, the Istanbul club – who finished fourth in the Turkish top flight last season – will be obliged to make the move permanent.
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