Before the first training session at the Kurtekotten Performance Centre, head coach Achim Feifel gathered his players together for an in-depth meeting before stepping onto the pitch at 18.30 CEST. The group included goalkeeper Friederike Abt, Julia Pollak, Caroline Siems, Dina Blagojevic, Clara Fröhlich, Irina Pando and Amira Arfaoui. They all signed for Bayer 04 in the summer.
Lisanne Gräwe, ,who joined Bayer 04 from DFB Cup winners VfL Wolfsburg, missed the opening session. The 18-year-old is currently doing her basic training with the Bundeswehr and will join pre-season training in the next few weeks. Also missing were Nina Brüggemann, Jessica Wich, Melissa Friedrich and Ann-Kathrin Vinken. They are all currently in rehab and were only able to watch their teammates on Wednesday evening.
The programme on day one of the five-week pre-season consisted of drills with the ball primarily in enclosed space and finished with shots. The Women's team will undergo obligatory performance tests at the BayArena on Thursday and Friday. The next session on the training ground is planned for Sunday morning.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen will have to manage without centre-back Edmond Tapsoba in the coming weeks. The Burkina Faso international returned to the Werkself from the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco with a muscle injury.
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The Werkself are away to Hamburg SV at the end of the Hinrunde in the 2025/26 Bundesliga campaign. The match at the newly promoted club is on Tuesday night, 13 January (kick-off: 20:30 CET). Ahead of the first encounter with HSV since 2018, Kasper Hjulmand spoke about the strengths of the opponents, lessons learnt from the home defeat against VfB Stuttgart and provided a squad update.
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In Germany, the temperatures are currently around zero, leaving even professional footballers freezing - but not the Bayer 04 Women. Roberto Pätzold's team have fled the cold to the south and are preparing for the second half of the season at a training camp in the Algarve, almost 2,000 kilometres away from home as the crow flies. The Leverkusen squad landed in Faro on Saturday morning and have already completed the first three training sessions over the weekend.
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It was a disappointing Saturday night. The Werkself lost 4-1 to VfB Stuttgart to start the new year on Bundesliga matchday 16 in 2025/26, a result that left both players and fans disappointed. "We played without any passion," said Alejandro Grimaldo honestly afterwards. Teammate Jarell Quansah was even more self-critical, emphasising: "We were miles off it in the first half. You can't put in a performance like that, especially in front of our own fans and I can only apologise to them, to be honest." Read on for the reaction, facts and stats from the clash with VfB Stuttgart in the Werkself review.
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