Mesut Özil (Arsenal) gave the World Cup winners of 2014 the lead on 11 minutes in Klagenfurt on Saturday night before the Austrians, coached by former Bayer 04 player and full of Bundesliga stars, turned the game round in the second half – much to the annoyance of Joachim Löw: "I'm disappointed with the defeat as we didn't do a lot of what we set out to. We had a decent first half but then we increasingly lost our way and nothing went right after that," said the Germany coach after the game. Martin Hinteregger (FC Augsburg) levelled on 53 minutes with Alessandro Schöpf (FC Schalke) putting the hosts ahead on 69 minutes.
The match kicked off at 19.43 instead of 18.00 due to severe weather conditions with the fixture briefly under threat of being abandoned. Leverkusen's Julian Brandt started on the right side of midfield but the 22-year-old failed to convert chances on 20 and 39 minutes thereby missing the chance to score his second goal in his fourteenth international appearance before being replaced by Timo Werner on 67 minutes. "I was determined to do my best. I could have put one or two chances away," said Brandt. The Werkself number ten is relaxed ahead of the announcement of the final Germany squad: „"I'm relatively relaxed and I'll wait and see what happens on Monday."
Brandt was not the only Werkself player to appear in front of the 30,000 crowd at the Wörthersee Stadium. The hosts were skippered by Julian Baumgartlinger in defensive midfield for the full 90 minutes and Aleksandar Dragovic , recently on loan at Leicester City, played in a back three. Both were able to celebrate the first Austria win against Germany since 1986. "The decisive factor was we wanted it more in the second half," was the verdict of Austria captain Baumgartlinger.
This special event showed once again how strong Bayer 04 are as a team: As part of ‘BarmeniaGothaer gives joy’, the Werkself players Edmond Tapsoba, Ibrahim Maza and Christian Kofane supported the sale of individually designed T-shirts for a good cause at the Fanwelt on Thursday. Several hundred fans came to take part in the charity campaign. Leverkusen's main sponsor BarmeniaGothaer donated the proceeds to the Fondation Edmond Tapsoba, which helps people in Tapsoba's home country of Burkina Faso in their challenging everyday lives.
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With three games to play before the end of the season, the Bayer 04 Women can break one record and equal another at SGS Essen. After three wins on the bounce, coach Roberto Pätzold's team are aiming to maintain the chance of third place in Sunday’s away game (14:00 CEST, Stadion an der Hafenstraße).
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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 personalised 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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From Ouagadougou to Leverkusen – and back: in March, Bayer 04 travelled with Edmond Tapsoba for a special project in his homeland Burkina Faso. The country where his roots and heart lie. The country where he’s more than a world-class defender: a symbol of hope and a role model for an entire generation. The result is a 45-minute documentary about Tapsoba’s long journey from Africa via Portugal to Leverkusen, which offers extraordinary, one-off and emotional insights.
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Edmond Tapsoba has signed an early extension to his contract with Bayer 04 Leverkusen. With two years left on his current deal, the 27-year-old Burkina Faso international has extended his contract until 30 June 2031. The centre-back joined as a young talent from Portuguese top-flight club Vitoria Guimaraes at the start of 2020.
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