Short passes: Start of the week in sunshine

The large number of fans, who made their way to the BayArena on the first day of the Easter holidays, were able to watch all the players with the exception of the two long-term absentees Karim Bellarabi and Joel Pohjanpalo – the captain Lars Bender, who was not in the squad  for the Stuttgart game on Saturday, took part in the 70-minute session that focused on stamina work. Ahead of the duel against Nürnberg, the Werkself have another open session tomorrow before the Black and Reds continue preparing for the next home game behind closed doors on Thursday.

Milestone for Havertz

Kai Havertz was the only Werkself player to be included in the German Football League (bundesliga.de) Team of the Day on matchday 29. The primary reason was his third converted penalty of the season in the Bundesliga that proved to be the winner in the 1-0 victory over Stuttgart – no other player has achieved that at his age (19 years, 306 days). It was also goal number 13 of the season for Havertz who made his 100th appearance for the Werkself in Stuttgart on Saturday (including 83 in the Bundesliga). But that's not all: the young national player has netted his 20th goal in the league – only Horst Köppel achieved that at a younger age (19 years, 241 days; in 1966/67).

Award for Bayer 04

Last week, Bayer 04 received the 'Digital Champions Award' in the 'Digital  Customer Experience' category. An internal (staff) app for the improvement of the stadium experience at the BayArena was assessed. With the help of the app, a large number of the members of staff at home games are supplied with important information via smartphones or tablets and, for example, it makes checking the kiosks easier. The 'Digital Champions Award' is an award for the German growth market in the area of digitisation and transformation and the target is to reward the most significant projects of SMEs  and reach a wide audience.