"We said from the start we wanted to finish top of the group. Nothing's changed in that respect," said Heiko Herrlich after the Tuesday morning training session as he clearly set out the target for Thursday. Nevertheless, the Werkself head coach will use the confirmed progress to the Round of 32 to give some of the players with less match time under their belts the opportunity to play against Ludogorets and "show what they can do and stake a claim for a place in the team."
The two Bender brothers missed full training in the first session of the week on Monday and instead completed individual sessions in the gym at the BayArena and Aleksandar Dragovic plus Jakub Bednarczyk trained on their own on a neighbouring pitch. Long-term injury Pohjanpalo (rehab training) and Tin Jedvaj (muscular problems) missed the Tuesday training session. A decision on the availability of the Croat for Thursday will be made after tomorrow's final pre-match training session.
The next and, at the same time, final open training session of the week will be held on Friday at 11.00 CET.
The next friendly for Bayer 04: A week after the 2-0 win in Bochum, the Werkself are away to top-flight Dutch side Fortuna Sittard today, Friday 1 August (kick-off: 19:00 CEST). The latest information on the match at the Fortuna Sittard Stadion close to the German border is here in today's match news.
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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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The Werkself entertain Italian club Pisa FC, newly promoted to Serie A, at the official season opener at the BayArena on Tuesday, 5 August (kick-off: 18:00 CEST). Bayer 04 fans can look forward to a varied programme of events and exciting promotions. Tickets for the season opener are on open sale with over 18,000 tickets sold so far. Read on for the latest information.
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An experienced addition to the Bayer 04 U19 coaching staff: Former Werkself player Hüzeyfe Doğan starts as assistant coach to Sergi Runge on 1 August.
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