Immediately before kick-off, the managing directors Fernando Carro and Rudi Völler plus sporting director Simon Rolfes will honour the brothers Lars and Sven Bender for their services to the Werkself. The twins have decided to end their impressive careers next week at the end of the current Bundesliga season.
Sven Elsinger also ends his time at Leverkusen. The head of the physiotherapy section leaves Bayer 04 after 13 years to concentrate on his practice back home in Hessen.
Bayer 04 are saving a special accolade for Lars Bender for a later date. After twelve years in a Leverkusen shirt, including five as captain, the 32-year-old Bender has been named a Werkself honorary captain. "We will only make the official presentation when we can hopefully have spectators back at the BayArena next season and give Lars the celebratory and emotional stage he deserves," said Rudi Völler.
Lars Bender will then join Rüdiger Vollborn, Carsten Ramelow, Ulf Kirsten, Bernd Schneider, Simon Rolfes and Stefan Kießling as the seventh honorary captain at Bayer 04 Leverkusen. "It is difficult to imagine a professional footballer having greater identification with a club than Lars does with Bayer 04 Leverkusen. His loyalty and his attitude over the years were exceptional. We owe huge gratitude to Lars," declared Fernando Carro.
Ahead of the home game against Union Berlin, Lars Bender sends an emotional message to the Bayer 04 family in the BayArena Aktuell magazine. Click HERE for the free digital edition.
The German Football League (DFL) has announced the three candidates for the title of Bundesliga Rookie of the Month for January. That includes Werkself player Jarell Quansah. Fans of Bayer 04 can vote for their favourite on the Bundesliga app from now until Thursday, 5 January (23:59 CET).
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As in the past two years, the Werkself are aiming to come out on top in the DFB Pokal quarter-finals on Tuesday night, 3 February (kick-off: 20:45 CET). With eleven home games in a row without defeat against the Kiezkicker, the Black and Reds go into the floodlit match in confident mood. But the Pokal, as is often said, has its own magic and the team from the Millerntor has much more to offer than the current 17th place in the Bundesliga would suggest. After all, Bayer 04 are one of the big German teams the combative Hamburgers have already made life difficult for this season. The matchday news.
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The Leverkusen eSports team picked up valuable points and made up ground in the overall table with a top four finish in the offline round in Showdown 4 in the VBL Club Championship 2025/26. In the round of 16, Showdown 1 winners Bayer 04 defeated the unbeaten runners-up in the previous round, VfL Bochum, in a thrilling penalty shoot-out. The Landwehr cousins, themselves the current club runners-up, then beat the current club champions and Showdown 3 winners RB Leipzig. It was not until the semi-finals that they lost out to the eventual showdown winners Borussia Mönchengladbach.
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Bayer 04 Leverkusen have strengthened the goalkeeper position for the second half of the season. Germany keeper Rafaela Borggräfe has joined the Werkself on loan from English FA Women's Super League (WSL) club Liverpool until the end of the season.
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Bayer 04 have agreed a loan move for U19s striker Ken Izekor to join Bundesliga 2 club Eintracht Braunschweig on loan for the rest of the 2025/26 season.
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