The reason for Bayer 04 qualifying for the Europa League – instead of the play-offs in the Conference League – is the following rule: The team finishing sixth in the Bundesliga enters the group stage of the Europa League providing the DFB Cup winner has already qualified for Europe via the league route. That is the case here as RB Leipzig finished third in the Bundesliga and therefore qualified for the Champions League.
Who the Werkself will face in the group stage of the Europa League will be decided at the draw on 1 September. Bayer 04 are in pot one. Also in pot one, and thereby excluded as immediate potential opponents, are the winners of this year’s Conference League (Fiorentina or West Ham United) plus Liverpool and Villareal. Another impossible pairing is against the second German team in the competition, SC Freiburg, who are in a different pot.
The date for the opening match in the group stage is already confirmed: The first fixture is on Thursday 21 September. The last game in the group is set for 14 December. The knockout stage begins in the New Year with the first leg of the play-offs on 15 February 2024. The final will be played at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin on 22 May 2024.
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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Two Saturdays, one Friday and one Sunday: The dates for the Bayer 04 Women's team games on matchdays 16 to 19 have been finalised. Three of the four matches scheduled by the German Football Association (DFB) on Tuesday will be played at home at the Ulrich Haberland Stadium.
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Bayer 04 currently have a number of promising young talents on loan to various clubs in Europe with the aim of gaining match practice and furthering their individual development. Francis Onyeka and Farid Alfa-Ruprecht, for example, play for VfL Bochum 1848, while Artem Stepanov is a striker with 1. FC Nürnberg, coached by World Cup winner Miroslav Klose. Tim Oermann is a defender in the Austrian Bundesliga at top club SK Sturm Graz and Abdoulaye Faye is playing in France for FC Lorient, promoted to Ligue 1 this season. Bayer04.de reviews the first six months for the Leverkusen players out on loan.
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Despite a courageous display, the Bayer 04 Women missed out on a surprise at the start of the second half of the Bundesliga season. Coach Roberto Pätzold's team lost 3-0 to league leaders Bayern Munich on Monday night. An early goal from the clinical visitors, a disputed penalty and another spot-kick prevented Leverkusen, who are seventh in the table on 22 points from 14 games, from picking up a point in front of 3,011 spectators at the sold-out Ulrich Haberland Stadium.
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