
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)

Bayer 04 Leverkusen will have to manage without centre-back Edmond Tapsoba in the coming weeks. The Burkina Faso international returned to the Werkself from the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco with a muscle injury.
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The Werkself are away to Hamburg SV at the end of the Hinrunde in the 2025/26 Bundesliga campaign. The match at the newly promoted club is on Tuesday night, 13 January (kick-off: 20:30 CET). Ahead of the first encounter with HSV since 2018, Kasper Hjulmand spoke about the strengths of the opponents, lessons learnt from the home defeat against VfB Stuttgart and provided a squad update.
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In Germany, the temperatures are currently around zero, leaving even professional footballers freezing - but not the Bayer 04 Women. Roberto Pätzold's team have fled the cold to the south and are preparing for the second half of the season at a training camp in the Algarve, almost 2,000 kilometres away from home as the crow flies. The Leverkusen squad landed in Faro on Saturday morning and have already completed the first three training sessions over the weekend.
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It was a disappointing Saturday night. The Werkself lost 4-1 to VfB Stuttgart to start the new year on Bundesliga matchday 16 in 2025/26, a result that left both players and fans disappointed. "We played without any passion," said Alejandro Grimaldo honestly afterwards. Teammate Jarell Quansah was even more self-critical, emphasising: "We were miles off it in the first half. You can't put in a performance like that, especially in front of our own fans and I can only apologise to them, to be honest." Read on for the reaction, facts and stats from the clash with VfB Stuttgart in the Werkself review.
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