
A great honour for Adam Hlozek: The 20-year-old has been nominated for the Bundesliga vote for Rookie of the Month alongside Éric Junior Dina Ebimbe (Eintracht Frankfurt) and Jakub Kaminski (VfL Wolfsburg).
Black and Red fans have until Thursday 24 November at 23.59 CET to vote for the Werkself number 23 as #BLRookie of the Month. You can vote HERE. The final result is determined as follows: 40% of the votes come from fans, and 30% each from the 18 Bundesliga team captains as well as a group of pundits.
Adam Hlozek joined the Werkself from top Czech club Sparta Prague in the summer of 2022 and he has been directly involved in five goals in 20 games for Bayer 04 this season. Hlozek scored his first Bundesliga goal in the month of November.
Piero Hincapie and Ecuador have made a winning start to the World Cup: The Werkself player was in the line-up for the 2-0 win in the opening match against hosts Qatar. Ecuador star striker Enner Valencia netted a brace (16', 31') on Sunday evening after having a strike on three minutes ruled out for offside. Hincapie played the full 90 minutes and helped his team keep a clean sheet. Ecuador are next in action in Group A against the Netherlands with Bayer 04 player Jeremie Frimpong (25 November 17.00 CET). The last match in the group against Senegal is four days later with the kick-off at 16.00 CET.

Sardar Azmoun was the second Leverkusen player to start the World Cup today Monday afternoon. The striker with Iran was on the wrong end of a 6-2 scoreline against England. Azmoun, who has not played since the end of September due to a muscle problem, came off the bench on 77 minutes with the score at 5-1 and he hit the bar eight minutes into added time.
Jeremie Frimpong and the Netherlands play their opening match against Senegal today at 17.00 CET, Exequiel Palacios and Argentina are involved in their opening game against Saudi Arabia tomorrow morning at 11.00.
A former Werkself head coach celebrates his birthday today: Peter Bosz is 59 years old – many happy returns. The Dutch coach came to Leverkusen at the end of December 2018. Up to his departure in March 2021, he coached Bayer 04 in 108 games picking up an average of 1.79 points per match. Bosz was in the dugout at the French club Lyon up to a month ago.

Bayer 04 Leverkusen will have to manage without centre-back Edmond Tapsoba in the coming weeks. The Burkina Faso international returned to the Werkself from the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco with a muscle injury.
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The Werkself are away to Hamburg SV at the end of the Hinrunde in the 2025/26 Bundesliga campaign. The match at the newly promoted club is on Tuesday night, 13 January (kick-off: 20:30 CET). Ahead of the first encounter with HSV since 2018, Kasper Hjulmand spoke about the strengths of the opponents, lessons learnt from the home defeat against VfB Stuttgart and provided a squad update.
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In Germany, the temperatures are currently around zero, leaving even professional footballers freezing - but not the Bayer 04 Women. Roberto Pätzold's team have fled the cold to the south and are preparing for the second half of the season at a training camp in the Algarve, almost 2,000 kilometres away from home as the crow flies. The Leverkusen squad landed in Faro on Saturday morning and have already completed the first three training sessions over the weekend.
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It was a disappointing Saturday night. The Werkself lost 4-1 to VfB Stuttgart to start the new year on Bundesliga matchday 16 in 2025/26, a result that left both players and fans disappointed. "We played without any passion," said Alejandro Grimaldo honestly afterwards. Teammate Jarell Quansah was even more self-critical, emphasising: "We were miles off it in the first half. You can't put in a performance like that, especially in front of our own fans and I can only apologise to them, to be honest." Read on for the reaction, facts and stats from the clash with VfB Stuttgart in the Werkself review.
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