
Werkself player Sardar Azmoun was in the Iran starting line-up in the final of the CAFA Nations Cup on Tuesday night 20 June. The tournament is the Central Asian championship and it was played for the first time in 2023. For Azmoun and his teammates the opponents in the final were Uzbekistan. The Bayer 04 striker scored the only goal of the game on 48 minutes to win the inaugural CAFA Nations Cup – congratulations, Sardar!
Bayer 04 captain Lukas Hradecky with Finland faced San Marino on Monday 19 June. Hradecky and Co. clocked up an emphatic 6-0 victory in the Euro 2024 qualifier. The Eagle Owls lead Group H with three wins from four games.
Striker Adam Hlozek played for Czechia a day later in a friendly against Montenegro. The Czechs won the game 4-1. Hlozek came off the bench on 70 minutes and he scored the final goal of the game on 85 minutes. Austria, with goalkeeper Patrick Pentz in the squad, played Sweden in the Euro 2024 qualifiers. The match in Vienna ended in a 2-0 for the hosts. Pentz did not feature. Midfielder Florian Wirtz was in the Germany squad for the final friendly in the current international break against Colombia on Tuesday night. The match at the Veltins Arena in Gelsenkirchen ended in a 2-0 defeat for the team coached by Hansi Flick. Wirtz did not play.
Forthcoming international fixtures:
Amine Adli (France U21)
22 June: France U21 vs Italy U21 (Group stage, U21 Euros)
25 June: Norway U21 vs France U21 (Group stage, U21 Euros)
28 June: France U21 vs Switzerland U21 (Group stage, U21 Euros)

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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