The ZDF show has been running since 1963 and always ends with a goal wall challenge. "Three at the bottom, three at the top" will be heard again late on Saturday evenings when the ZDF presenter Jochen Breyer asks the former top striker to take on a challenger. Before that, Breyer and Rudi Völler will discuss the results of the Saturday matches, talk about the run-in and look forward to the forthcoming Bundesliga match against Eintracht Frankfurt on Monday 2 May. Remaining tickets for the game are available from the Bayer 04 ticket shop.
The 62-year-old showed what's needed for shots from seven yards in March 1985. Back then a player with Werder Bremen, his five strikes put him right at the top of the list. A record that Völler now shares with just eight of the goal wall marksmen. One of those to clock up five with a Bayer 04 past is Reinhard Saftig who was the coach at Leverkusen from July 1991 to May 1993. He achieved that masterpiece in October 1991 and is the only goal wall marksman with the Werkself at the time up to now.
In addition to Völler and Saftig, a large number of other Leverkusen players and managers have sat at the interview table on the 'aktuelles sportstudio' programme. Erich Ribbeck, who coached the Werkself to win the UEFA Cup in 1988, faced questions from the presenters in around 30 broadcasts. A couple fewer visits were made by Christoph Daum who was in the Bayer 04 dugout for 185 games between 1996 and 2000.
The most recent guest from the Werkself on 20 November 2021 was midfield maestro Robert Andrich. The 27-year-old midfielder made his way to Mainz after the 1-0 home win against VfL Bochum on matchday 12. The Bayer 04 number eight sank one of six attempts in the goal wall challenge.
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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