
Heiko Herrlich is holding seven training sessions this week ahead of the home game against SC Freiburg – and the Wednesday morning workout saw the new face of Panagiotis Retsos on the training ground. The 19-year-old completed his first training sessions at Leverkusen one-to-one as he picked up a knee injury during the international break in Greece's 0-0 draw with Estonia. That match was his first full international appearance.
While Dominik Kohr and Charles Aránguiz, who both picked up knocks in the game against Mainz, trained individually at the start of the week, Julian Baumgartlinger returned to full training on Monday afternoon after recovering from flu. And Jonathan Tah, who was struggling with a muscular problem, completed his first individual session on Tuesday morning. He had to drop out of the Wednesday session after the warm-up routine due to a back problem but Heiko Herrlich is confident the central defender will rejoin his team-mates on the training ground by the end of the week .
There is good news on Tin Jedvaj who started light training following recovery from his fractured shin. However, as he missed all the pre-season , it will be a while before he is back to full training.
No update on Alario
While the squad moved to the Ulrich Haberland Stadium after the warm-up to work on team tactics in an eleven versus eleven format, Lucas Alario was working on final training. Bayer 04 are still waiting for the Argentinean to get permission to play.

Video game producer Electronic Arts (EA) has announced the nominees for the Men's and Women's Team of the Year (TOTY) for EA Sports FC 26. With Patrik Schick and Alejandro Grimaldo for the men and Vanessa Fudalla for the women, there are three Bayer 04 players included. Fans of the Black-and-Reds can vote for each top XI of 2025 from now until 18:59 CET on Monday 12 January.
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The Werkself host Mainz at the BayArena on matchday 24 in the 2025/26 Bundesliga season. The match is on Saturday, 28 February, at 15:30 CET. Information on ticket sales.
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The long-standing successful collaboration between Bayer 04 and the transport service provider wupsi GmbH has been expanded: From January 2026, 100 wupsi bikes with Bayer 04 branding will be available for hire throughout the city of Leverkusen. They will complement the many existing offers and services that provide key support, especially for fans travelling to and from home matches at the BayArena.
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The Werkself are back! Following the two-week winter break, head coach Kasper Hjulmand's team began the new year with an open session on Sunday. After Robert Andrich and his teammates arrived in Leverkusen yesterday for the official check-in, they got back down to business a day later in front of around 1,200 fans at the Ulrich Haberland Stadion. The report from the Werkself's first session of 2026.
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