The home record clearly favours the Black and Reds: 14 wins, 6 draws and 3 defeats with a goal difference of 55 for and 31 against. The stats are good but the fact VfL will be a tough opponent on Saturday is clear to Peter Bosz as he explained at the pre-match press conference: “Wolfsburg are very solid this season. They perform very well as a team: compact, aggressive, strong in challenges and fast. At the moment, they are very difficult to beat.”
One advantage for the Werkself could well be the positive outcome of the match on Tuesday night. “Winning games gives every player confidence. And even more so when he’s played well and deservedly beaten a top team like Dortmund ,” said the head coach. After a bumpy start to the new year, the Dutchman believes his team “are on the right track. It’s difficult to say whether we’re back at the level we were before the Bayern game. But we’re getting better week by week.”
Things are getting better and better for Charles Aránguiz. The Chilean, in the line-up against BVB for the first time after months out injured, was substituted on 69 minutes. “After such a long break, he obviously feels the minutes on the pitch all over his body. His performance was already at a higher level than we expected.”
The captain had a recovery session on Thursday and Bosz wanted to wait for the Friday training session before deciding if he could count on Aránguiz from the start against Wolfsburg. “Charly is a player who doesn’t need much training to get back to a certain level. That’s because he’s an endurance runner rather than a sprinter. That’s a different pressure. He probably needs some time before he can play for 90 minutes twice a week.”
Whether the recently injured Wendell and Julian Baumgartlinger will be available again also depends on the outcome of the final pre-match training session. For Exequiel Palacios it is too early for a place in the squad. The Argentinian has returned to full training after starting the week with individual workouts but he has to avoid challenges. Sven Bender is also still unavailable.
The verdict of the DFB sports tribunal on Thursday against Florian Hübner due to the incident with Nadiem Amiri at the end of the Werkself match at Union Berlin came up at the press conference. Hübner received “a two-match ban for unsporting conduct. The Berliner, who accepted the verdict, also has to pay a fine of €20,000,” according to the announcement by the DFB. “The verdict is clear. The player apologised, Nadiem accepted it. That means the matter is settled as far as we’re concerned and we’re focussing on the game against Wolfsburg,” said Bosz.

In the previous game against RB Leipzig in December last year, the Werkself turned came from behind to win 3-1 and further improved Leverkusen's already strong record against the Red Bulls. Montrell Culbreath stood out with his first goal on his debut for the Black and Reds. While the 18-year-old would certainly like to score a second goal against Leipzig on Saturday night, the attack-minded visitors come to the BayArena in confident mood after five Bundesliga victories in a row. The Nordkurve12 supporters group knows the Werkself will therefore once again be reliant on the vociferous support of the fans, and has once again called for the ‘Finally Red’ campaign in the run-in. Today’s matchday news.
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Video games manufacturer Electronic Arts (EA), together with the German Football League (DFL), announced the top male and female selections for the 2025/26 Bundesliga season this week. Bayer 04 striker Vanessa Fudalla is in the starting eleven of the women's "Team of the Season". Alejandro Grimaldo and Aleix Garcia have been selected as bench players in the men's team.
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This special event showed once again how strong Bayer 04 are as a team: As part of ‘BarmeniaGothaer gives joy’, the Werkself players Edmond Tapsoba, Ibrahim Maza and Christian Kofane supported the sale of individually designed T-shirts for a good cause at the Fanwelt on Thursday. Several hundred fans came to take part in the charity campaign. Leverkusen's main sponsor BarmeniaGothaer donated the proceeds to the Fondation Edmond Tapsoba, which helps people in Tapsoba's home country of Burkina Faso in their challenging everyday lives.
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With three games to play before the end of the season, the Bayer 04 Women can break one record and equal another at SGS Essen. After three wins on the bounce, coach Roberto Pätzold's team are aiming to maintain the chance of third place in Sunday’s away game (14:00 CEST, Stadion an der Hafenstraße).
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Rüdiger Vollborn has been at the club for 40 years, he holds the record number of Bundesliga appearances for the club (401) and is the only Bayer 04 player to have won both the UEFA Cup (1988) and the DFB Pokal (1993). And the Berliner stayed with the Werkself after ending his impressive playing career as he worked as a goalkeeping coach for the following nine years. Vollborn now works under the Bayer Cross as a fan liaison officer and club archivist. Since February 2021, the personalised Black and Red lexicon takes Werkself fans under the heading of 'Rudi recounts...' on a brief trip through the history of Bayer 04 every month…
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