No goals at Wembley as this time, in contrast to the legendary 1966 World Cup final, a rocket shot from Leroy Sané hit the underside of the bar but was rightly judged not to have crossed the line – in spite of the draw, the game between the two big European football nations proved to be entertaining encounter. Germany kept up their impressive record at England's home of football with a goalless draw that extends an unbeaten record since 1975. Bernd Leno did not play but Julian Brandt came on in the 86th minute to earn his 13th international cap. Joachim Löw's team are in action again in Cologne on Tuesday (20.45 CET) in the final match of the year against France.
Switzerland and Admir Mehmedi are on the verge of qualification for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. In the first leg of the play-off against Northern Ireland, the Swiss earned a deserved 1-0 win and they are in the driving seat ahead of Sundays decisive return match at the St Jakob Park stadium in Basel (18.00 CET). The former Wolfsburg player Ricardo Rodriguez, now playing for AC Milan, converted a penalty on 58 minutes for the only goal of the game. Mehmedi came on with three minutes to play for his 57th full international appearance.
Panos Retsos was also on the bench at the start of his play-off match. When the Bayer 04 pro was brought on by Michael Skibbe at the start of the second half, Greece were already 3-1 down against Croatia in Zagreb. The match ended in a 4-1 defeat for the Greeks who were unable to cope with the lively approach of the hosts and they made several errors in defence. Tin Jedvaj, currently recovering in Leverkusen, watched the match from afar and was able to enjoy the Croatian victory. The chances of Greece turning the tie round are slim ahead of Sunday's return match in Piraeus (20.45 CET).
Joel Pohjanpalo and Finland beat Estonia 3-0 in a friendly. 'Danger' played the full 90 minutes and provided the assist for the opening goal. On Sunday (14.30 CET), the two Bayer 04 youth players Sam Schreck and Atakan Akkaynak are set to play for the Germany U19s in Cyprus. Julian Baumgartlinger is likely to play for Austria in a friendly against Uruguay on Tuesday.
Attacking midfielder Paulina Bartz is leaving Bayer 04 Leverkusen for good on a permanent move to Hamburger SV in the Google Pixel Women’s Bundesliga. The 21-year-old, who was on loan to the newly promoted side in the winter, originally had a contract to 2027.
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The Bayer 04 Football School opened in 2007 – now this successful programme is getting a new name and a new logo: with immediate effect, the Bayer 04 Football School powered by BarmeniaGothaer is becoming the Bayer 04 Football Academy powered by BarmeniaGothaer.
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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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The sustainable use of the BayArena seats removed as part of the current stadium upgrade has taken on a new dimension: Following on from numerous Bayer 04 fans receiving their ‘Undefeated Champions seats’ and various clubs and community organisations from Leverkusen and the wider region having collected the dismantled seats, Blau-Gelbe Kreuz e.V. also made their way to the BayArena recently. The German-Ukrainian aid organisation took away around 2,100 seats; in Ukraine, these will be used to upgrade the sports infrastructure of two clubs.
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