Wirtz scored 11 goals and provided 11 assists in his 32 Bundesliga appearances this season to take the award organised by the DFL and EA Sports, adding to his monthly trophies from October, December and February. The other winners of the Player of the Month titles were VfB Stuttgart duo Serhou Guirassy (September and March) and Deniz Undav (November and January), as well as Bayer 04 teammates Victor Boniface (August) and Alejandro Grimaldo (April).
Unsurprisingly, the Player of the Season also earned a place in the Bundesliga’s Team of the Season for 2023/24. He also won Germany’s 2023 Goal of the Year vote by Sportschau for his individual effort against Freiburg last autumn.
The DFL has named an official Player of the Season since 2019/20, with Wirtz’s accolade the first for a Werkself player.
Wirtz will receive his trophy alongside Rookie of the Season winner Boniface at the Coming Home celebration on Sunday, 26 May.
Strengthening the Bayer 04 Leverkusen youth teams: Konstantinos Kotsifakis will join the Werkself from Bundesliga 2 club Hertha Berlin for the 2026/27 season, where he will be a permanent member of the Leverkusen U19 coaching set-up. The German-Greek will also take on an operational role in coaching the Bayer 04 Future Team. The 29-year-old was most recently head coach of the U17s at Hertha Berlin.
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Another award for the Bayer 04 head groundsman and staff: After coming top in the 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2024/25 seasons, the BayArena pitch came second in the Bundesliga Pitch of the Year ranking for the 2025/26 season. VfL Wolfsburg secured the top spot this year, with TSG Hoffenheim in third place.
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Opening opponents, derby weekends, the opponents in the season finale: This information and more will be available to Bayer 04 fans on Thursday, 2 July, when the 2026/27 Bundesliga fixture list is published.
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Rüdiger Vollborn has been at the club for 40 years, he holds the record number of Bundesliga appearances for the club (401) and is the only Bayer 04 player to have won both the UEFA Cup (1988) and the DFB Pokal (1993). And the Berliner stayed with the Werkself after ending his impressive playing career as he worked as a goalkeeping coach for the following nine years. Vollborn now works under the Bayer Cross as a fan liaison officer and club archivist. Since February 2021, the personal Black and Red lexicon takes Werkself fans under the heading of 'Rudi recounts...' on a brief trip through the history of Bayer 04 every month…
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