Happy faces all round: On Thursday morning, the Werkself made their way to the Ranken Jordan rehab facility, which is known as a bridging hospital. Children still needing care before returning home are cared for there.
The Werkself players including Kerem Demirbay, Nadiem Amiri and Karim Bellarabi spent a lot of time with the children, playing and talking to them. Bob Pritts, CEO of the Ranken Jordan Hospital, was impressed and touched at the same time: "It's great to see how the children and players interact with each other. These visits are something really special for the kids. Moments like these help the children enormously and give them a lot of strength." In the past, sports teams from St. Louis like the Blues (ice hockey) and the Cardinals (baseball) have also visited to put a smile on the faces of the children and teenagers.
There was another sporting highlights to round off the #Bayer04USATour: Going to the NHL game between the St. Louis Blues and the Washington Capitals. Watching from the Bayer AG box, Andrey Lunev, Niklas Lomb and Co. witnessed an exciting ice hockey match that St Louis finally won 5-4 on penalties.
Werkself TV: Day five of the #Bayer04USATour
The #Bayer04USATour 2022 ended on Friday with the return flight of the majority of the Bayer 04 delegation. After a last joint lunch it was off on a direct flight from St. Louis to Frankfurt am Main. The Werkself will now enjoy a well-deserved, two-week break from training.
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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