
Dirk Heinen, who won the DFB Cup with the Werkself in 1993 and the German league title with VfB Stuttgart in 2007, ended his playing career after the 2006/07 season and emigrated to Ireland with his family. During the 90-minute show, the current goalkeeping coach at Watford, talks about his life on the British Isles, the ‘Rhenisch mentality’ and lots of really extraordinary experiences from his football career - such as his appearance on the German version of You Bet! in 2006, a donner sauce in Turkey named after him and his unexpected but successful Bundesliga comeback at Arminia Bielefeld at the age of 37.







Heinen, who celebrated his 50th birthday at the beginning of December, also looks back at the 1995/96 season that almost ended in relegation with a ‘final’ against FC Kaiserslautern, talks about twists of fate, bad luck with injuries but also his special relationship with his long-term role model and later teammate and mentor Rüdiger Vollborn, who surprises our guest with a question as does his former Brazilian teammate Paulo Sergio.
This episode again provides exiting insights into the world of Bayer 04 (in German). Listen in!
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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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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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