Basaksehir, managed by the former Turkey coach Abdullah Avci, have experienced a massive upturn in fortune over recent years and have broken into the leading group of the big three Istanbul clubs Galatasaray, Fenerbahce and Besiktas. Last term's Süper Lig saw them finish third just three points behind champions Galatasaray and this September they are in the UEFA Europa League along with Bayer 04. Before that, they were runners-up once and finished fourth twice.
The squad has a number of internationally experienced pros: Goalkeeper Volkan Babacan, Arda Turan (100 internationals for Turkey and previously in Spain at Barcelona and Atlético Madrid), Emre (95 international caps for Turkey), Gökhan Inler (89 caps for Switzerland), Gael Clichy (18 internationals for France) and the Togo striker Emmanuel Adebayor, top scorer for Basaksehirs last season with 15 goals and for many years in the Premier League at Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester City and Arsenal. Familiar faces from the Bundesliga are the Serb Milos Jojic, signed this week from FC Köln, the Brazilian Junior Caicara (Schalke 04) plus Eljero Elia, who played for Werder Bremen and Hamburg.
Before that, Bayer 04 have friendly fixtures against SV Roßbach (18 July), Sportfreunde Siegen (21 July), Wuppertaler SV (24 July) and Fortuna Sittard (28 July). Following the training camp in Austria there is a match against Valencia (11 August).
It couldn't have been any tighter! Despite winning four of six games in the online preliminary round in Showdown 1 of the VBL Club Championship 2026/27, Leverkusen eSports duo Marc and Sean Landwehr didn't make it through to the offline knockout round. Level on points (12) with seven other teams, Leverkusen were the only team with this points tally not to progress as they had the worst single-game record compared to their rivals.
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Bayer 04 are away to Croatian champions Dinamo Zagreb on Matchday 5 of the league phase of the 2026/27 UEFA Europa League. The game kicks off on Thursday 26 November at 18:45 CET at the Maksimir Stadium. All the information on ticket sales.
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It wasn’t just on the pitch that there was cause for celebration around the Werkself’s 2–1 home win against SC Freiburg. Plenty of happy faces could be seen near the dugouts at half-time too. Once again, CEO Fernando Carro, alongside former striker and club ambassador Stefan Kießling, paid tribute to eight supporters’ clubs celebrating up to their 30th anniversary on behalf of Bayer 04.
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A disciplined and impressive team performance secured a 2–1 victory for the Werkself against league leaders SC Freiburg, who had remained unbeaten across all competitions until then; two players once again stood out at the BayArena: Artisic dribbler Ibrahim Maza scored Leverkusen’s first goal himself and set up the second, whilst goal-getter Patrik Schick had set up the equaliser and netted the winner. In doing so, the Czechia international set a remarkable club record. Both head coach Carles Martínez and the media were full of praise afterwards. Maza himself was also delighted with the growing rapport with “super striker” Schick: “The more we play together, the better we understand each other.” The Werkself’s comeback secured their fourth home win in their fourth home game of the season.
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