The birthday celebrations within the squad for Jeremie Frimpong, who is 21 today (Friday), could fortunately be held on the training ground. As usual on this occasion, the Dutchman had to negotiate a tunnel of teammates standing closely together. Frimpong completed this with a smile on his face and without pain in his ankle, which did not look likely after the final whistle in the match in Budapest.
The right-back came off the bench and was brought down in added time and had to leave the pitch before the end of the game. "Jeremie received a heavy blow to his ankle. Fortunately he didn't suffer any injuries to his ligaments. It's looking good," explained Gerardo Seoane at the pre-match press conference on Friday afternoon.
Seoane, who did not lose any players from the intense match at Ferencváros, is able to focus fully on the away game in Frankfurt. Eintracht have recovered recently and, like the Werkself, won their group in the Europa League. The team coached by Oliver Glasner have picked up ten points from the last five Bundesliga matches. "Frankfurt have come into very good form in recent weeks – not just in terms of performances but also results," warned Seoane.
The 43-year-old Swiss coach on the approach of Eintracht Frankfurt: "They have a ball-winning and physical team and often are very quick in transition after winning the ball just as we are. Unsurprisingly, he identified the key attacking player as Filip Kostic. The Serbian winger has scored three goals and provided six assists in the Bundesliga to date: "He's an outstanding crosser of the ball. We'll have to try and close him down – even if that's not always possible over 90 minutes."
After the "all in all good display" in Budapest, Seoane now has several new possibilities in terms of personnel for the next three league matches within just nine days. Players who have returned from injury were able to pick up important match practice as were others who have rarely started recently. "We have three tough games. We need to have a lot of players available," explained Seoane who is looking for a fourth Bundesliga win in succession.
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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With their wonderful goals, Martin Terrier and Florian Wirtz are up for the Bundesliga Goal of the Year 2025. Voting for fans will run exclusively via the official Bundesliga app until Sunday, 4 January.
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Four Bayer 04 players are in action at the 35th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations being played in Morocco from 21 December to 18 January 2026: Eliesse Ben Seghir for the hosts, Edmond Tapsoba with Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Maza for Algeria and Christian Kofane with Cameroon. Updates on the AFCON matches involving Werkself players...
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The ‘year after’ the most successful year in the club's history brought many changes at Bayer 04. In an exclusive double interview with bayer04.de shortly before the Christmas break, Fernando Carro and Simon Rolfes spoke about building a new team capable of winning trophies, the work of coach Kasper Hjulmand, the young new signings who have quickly developed into key players, and their personal plans for the Christmas holidays. Their outlook for the coming year also shows that the potential is far from exhausted and ambitions remain high.
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Last-minute ecstasy, huge disappointment and a historic performance on the European stage - 2025 was a real emotional roller coaster, especially for the U19s. A rousing run in the knockout phase secured the team a place in the final of the German championships, where they lost by the narrowest of margins. Despite the departure of several key players, the young Werkself team quickly regained their usual strength and qualified for the knockout rounds in the UEFA Youth League for the first time at the end of the year. In 2025, youngsters Jeremiah Mensah and Montrell Culbreath made their debuts in the Bundesliga, the DFB Pokal and the UEFA Champions League. The other youth teams also contributed great performances and a number of trophies to the collective Black and Red success, while the successful Bayer 04 Future Kids project broke new ground. Read on for the 2025 review of the youth teams.
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