First defeat of the pre-season at Nottingham Forest

Head coach Carles Martínez made seven changes to his starting line-up compared with the home friendly against Sevilla (2-1) at the season launch. Only Loïc Badé, Jeanuel Belocian, Ezequiel Fernández and Ibrahim Maza remained in starting XI. New signing Miguel Gutiérrez, one of the changes, made his first start against Nottingham Forest after coming on against Sevilla for his first few minutes in a Werkself jersey.

Schick strike cancels out early deficit

The match against the English side did not start as hoped. On four minutes, Leverkusen were unable to prevent a cross from Nottingham Forest playmaker and captain, Morgan Gibbs-White. The cross found Dan Ndoye in the centre, who put the home side ahead early on. Around a quarter of an hour later, Bayer 04 made their first foray into the opposition box: Malik Tillman set up Ernest Poku, but his shot was cleared (19’). That was followed in the 30th minute by a good header from Patrik Schick, which flew just wide of the right-hand post. Shortly after that, Badé, who had pushed forward, thwarted a counter-attack and played the ball to Fernández. The Argentine played it through to Schick – and this time the Czech made no mistake. He levelled the scores at 1–1 with a lob (32'). Not much else happened before the half-time whistle, and the teams went into the dressing rooms after just one minute of added time.

FOREST WIN WITH LATE goal

At the start of the second half, Martínez made three substitutions, bringing on Edmond Tapsoba, Tim Oermann and Afonso Moreira for Badé, Miguel Gutiérrez and Martin Terrier. The home side fielded a completely new line-up, with Forest bringing on, amongst others, former Leverkusen player Callum Hudson-Odoi. The second half got off to a rather subdued start. Nottingham Forest substitute Nicolas Martin Dominguez had the first big chance following a corner, but his header was tipped over the bar by Janis Blaswich (62). To inject some fresh impetus into his side’s attack, Martínez brought on Christian Kofane, Jonas Hofmann and Aleix Garcia. But even with the substitutions – including the introduction of Victor Boniface (80') – the match remained a hard-fought affair. Shortly before the final whistle, the home side managed to score again – a free-kick from former Borussia Mönchengladbach player Luca Netz found striker Arnaud Kalimuendo and he easily converted with a header. Full time soon followed.

next up: part two of england trip

This coming Saturday, 15 August (kick-off: 16:00 CEST), the Werkself are away to Newcastle United in the second match of the week in England. This is the final friendly before the start of the season a week later. On Saturday 22 August at 13:00 CEST, the Werkself play their first-round match in the 2026/27 DFB Pokal away to SV Wehen Wiesbaden.

Match stats:

Nottingham Forest: Sels (Victor 46’) – Diomande (Hudson-Odoi 46’), Milenkovic (Cunha 46’), Murillo (Netz 46’) - Aina (Kalimuendo 46’), Schlager (Yates 46’), Sangaré (Abbott 46’), Williams (Dominguez 46’) - Ndoye (da Silva Moreira 46’), Gibbs-White (Awoniyi 46’) - Igor Jesus (McAtee 46’)

Bayer 04: Blaswich – Vázquez (Boniface 80’), Badé (Tapsoba 46’), Belocian (Hawighorst 80’), Gutiérrez (Oermann 46’) – Fernández (Doganay 69’) – Poku (Arthur 69’), Tillman (Hofmann 69’), Maza (Garcia 69’), Terrier (Moreira 46’) – Schick (Kofane 69’) 

Goals: 1–0 Ndoye (5'), 1–1 Schick (33'), 2–1 Kalimuendo (90')

Attendance: 11 ,864 at the City Ground