News in brief: Preparations for new season in all areas

There was a lot going on in the final week of the pre-season ahead of the first competitive match in the DFB Cup first round against SV 07 Elversberg on Saturday 30 July (kick-off: 15.30 CEST): After the annual internal Media Days the Werkself players were back in front of the cameras today for the DFL Media Day.

The first group including Werkself skipper Lukas Hradecky started at noon. The players went to different areas in and around the BayArena to pose for a host of photos and video recordings. The whole squad went onto the pitch at the BayArena at 14.00 CEST for the official team photo for the new season.

relaxed session to start the week

Following on, Gerardo Seoane held a short training session on the training ground by the BayArena. A relaxed warm-up included a range of passing and positional drills. Jonathan Tah, Kerem Demirbay and Sardar Azmoun stayed on the pitch to practice free kicks. Good news: Amine Adli was back on the pitch and he is gradually being reintroduced to training after months out injured.

Not everybody finish for the day after the training session. The Media Day was ended in the afternoon with the second group including Charles Aránguiz, Edmond Tapsoba and Jeremie Frimpong.

happy birthday, Adam

Congratulations, Adam Hlozek. The new signing today celebrates his 20th birthday. The Czech striker joined Leverkusen last month from Sparta Prague. The Czech Republic international will play his first season for the Werkself wearing the number 23 shirt.

Rhineland Football summit

At the same time, Bayer 04 sporting managing director Simon Rolfes set off to Düsseldorf for the Rhineland Bundesliga summit involving Borussia Mönchengladbach’s sporting director Roland Virkus, Fortuna Düsseldorf’s sporting director Klaus Allofs and the head of the first-team section at FC Köln, Thomas Kessler. In the conference room at the Rheinische Post, the representatives of the clubs addressed an audience of 80 on a range of subjects, targets and prospects for the new season as well as current squad planning.

"We were able to extend contracts over the long term with players like Patrik Schick and Florian Wirtz. That's a good sign as the players can see that something is happening here and they can play a significant role in this development," said Rolfes on the contract extensions at Bayer 04. The discussions also included developments in women's football: "It's great that women's football is receiving more and more attention, particularly with the impressive performances at the Euros. Structures are increasingly improving and we are trying to actively encourage that at Bayer 04," said Rolfes.

UEFA visit the BayArena

Preparations for matches on the international stage are progressing. Ahead of the UEFA Champions League season, representatives of UEFA visited the BayArena last week to inspect facilities in relation to technical infrastructure. The UEFA representative spent almost the whole day taking a close look at areas such as sponsorship coverage, ticketing and the hospitality areas. As usual, the result was certainly positive: Bayer 04 are in great shape for the forthcoming UEFA Champions League matches. So we're ready to go.

U19 traINING CAMP

Some arrive and others leave: After the Werkself players successfully completed their training camp in Zell am See-Kaprun, the U19s now have a one-week training camp. The squad under head coach Sven Hübscher set off this morning to Tegelen in the Netherlands where the Werkself youth team will stay up to Sunday 31 July.

The Hübscher team will play two friendlies. Middle Rhine League team FC Wegberg-Beeck provide the opposition on Wednesday 27 July. The game kicks off at 19.00 CEST. The Black and Reds head back to Leverkusen on Sunday with a stop in Düsseldorf. The Werkself youth team will play the Fortuna Düsseldorf team of the same age at Flinger Broich. The kick-off is at 13.00 CEST.