It was a perfect start: Amine Adli scored his first goal for France in his debut for the U21 side. The striker played the full 90 minutes in the European Championship qualifier against Ukraine and he scored the third goal. His teammates added another two before the final whistle to earn the young Equipe Tricolore a deserved 5-0 victory.
The ninth international cap for Odilon Kossounou ended with complete success for the Bayer 04 defender. The Ivory Coast beat Malawi 3-0 in a World Cup qualifier to secure top spot in Group D. The team under head coach Patrice Beaumelle have picked up seven points in the first three matches (two wins, one draw) and are currently one point ahead of Cameroon. The Ivorians are in action again on Monday, 11 October (kick-off: 18.00 CEST) with the return match against Malawi.
The Czech Republic, with Werkself striker Patrik Schick, earned a fair 2-2 draw against Wales in a hard-fought encounter. Aaron Ramsey put Wales ahead on 36 minutes but the Czechs replied two minutes later with a goal from Jakub Pesek.
Just after the restart, there was a bizarre own goal from the Wales keeper Danny Ward: Ramsey played a casual back pass to his shot-stopper who was clearly not expecting it. Ward scrambled back and hit the ball with the outside of his foot onto the right-hand post. From there it bounced back onto his head and into the goal. Schick and Co. failed to maintain their lead with Daniel James levelling on 69 minutes.
Jeremie Frimpong and Mitchel Bakker are currently away with the Netherlands U21 team. While the latter was not in the squad for the U 21 European Championship qualifier against Switzerland, Frimpong made his second appearance in an Oranje shirt. The 20-year-old was in the starting line-up and he helped his team come back from two goals down to earn a 2-2 draw. The Bayer 04 defender was substituted on 86 minutes. The goals for the Dutch team were scored by Joshua Zirkzee who is currently on loan from Bayern Munich at the Belgian top-flight club Anderlecht.
Florian Wirtz and Andrey Lunev watched from the sidelines as their national teams both won. Germany came back from a 1-0 deficit at half-time against Rumania to win 2-1, and Russia beat Slovakia 1-0.
In the previous game against RB Leipzig in December last year, the Werkself turned came from behind to win 3-1 and further improved Leverkusen's already strong record against the Red Bulls. Montrell Culbreath stood out with his first goal on his debut for the Black and Reds. While the 18-year-old would certainly like to score a second goal against Leipzig on Saturday night, the attack-minded visitors come to the BayArena in confident mood after five Bundesliga victories in a row. The Nordkurve12 supporters group knows the Werkself will therefore once again be reliant on the vociferous support of the fans, and has once again called for the ‘Finally Red’ campaign in the run-in. Today’s matchday news.
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Video games manufacturer Electronic Arts (EA), together with the German Football League (DFL), announced the top male and female selections for the 2025/26 Bundesliga season this week. Bayer 04 striker Vanessa Fudalla is in the starting eleven of the women's "Team of the Season". Alejandro Grimaldo and Aleix Garcia have been selected as bench players in the men's team.
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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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