
Led by captain Julian Baumgartlinger and Aleksandar Dragovic, Austria took a big step towards qualifying for next year's European Championships. The Austrians produced a good performance to register a 3-1 win against Israel in the Group G match at the Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna. Eran Zahavy (34') gave the visitors the lead before the former Hertha Berlin player Valentino Lazaro (41') plus Eintracht Frankfurt's Martin Hinteregger (56') and Leipzig's Marcel Sabitzer (88') scored to turn the game round. Baumgartlinger played the full 90 minutes in defensive midfield and Dragovic also went the distance in central defence. Austria are now in second place in the group behind Poland having gone ahead of their next opponents in the qualifiers, Slovenia (Sunday, 13 October, 20.45 CET).
In the U21 Euro qualifiers, Panagiotis Retsos captained Greece in a 1-1 draw in the Czech Republic that keeps them top of Group 4. Playing with ten men for much of the game after a sending off on 24 minutes, Greece took the lead just before half-time with a strike from Giannis Bouzoukis (45') but the hosts levelled on 76 minutes with Adam Hlozek getting on the scoresheet. Retsos played in defensive midfield for the full 90 minutes. The 21-year-old should be in the senior Greece squad on Tuesday (15 October, 20.45 CET) for European qualifier against Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Moussa Diaby was in the France U21s for a convincing 5-0 home win against Azerbaijan in Group 2 in the European qualifiers. The French side dominated proceedings from the start in Calais – Odsonne Édouard (2', 36') gave the hosts the lead before Dortmund's Dan-Axel Zagadou converted an assist from Diaby to make it 3-0 on 40 minutes. Houssem Aouar (51') and Arnaud Nordin (76’) rounded off the scoring in the second half. The Werkself number 19 played the whole game on the right wing.
The Brazil Olympic team beat Venezuela 4-1 in a friendly. Paulinho, who was on the left wing for the full 90 minutes, provided both assists for Antony just after the restart to put the SeleçãoOlímpica on course for victory at the Estadio dos Aflitos in Recife. Before that, Cristian Cásseres Jr. (37') levelled the score after Douglas Luiz gave the hosts the lead on 24 minutes. Pedro made it 4-1 for the Brazil U23s with the final goal on 73 minutes.
Adrian Stanilewicz celebrated a last-minute win with the Poland U20s against Germany: The winner in the Elite League match came in the final minute as Poland won 4-3. In front of a crowd of 2,000 in Norderstedt in Schleswig-Holstein, Tomasz Makowski opened the scoring for the visitors in the first minute before the Germany U20s turned the game round with goals from Manuel Wintzheimer (7', 21' pen.) and John Yeboah Zamora (36'). In the end Marcel Zylla (40'), Dawid Kurmiokowski (48') and Lukasz Poreba (90') secured the win for Poland. Stanilewicz played for 62 minutes.


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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