Zé Roberto took his first step in Europe in January 1997 when he signed for Real Madrid. However, he rarely played under the coaches Fabio Capello and Jupp Heynckes and he returned to Brazil a year later in January 1998, this time to Rio de Janeiro where he played for CR Flamengo.
Shortly after that came the contact with Bayer 04. On 15 August 1998, the Brazilian came off the bench on 61 minutes in the home game against Hansa Rostock on matchday one with the score at 2-1. Over the next four years he was a number one choice for the Werkself and he thrilled the Bayer fans with his technical finesse and tricks. He scored 18 goals in 149 games for our team but also provided many assists. With Bayer 04 he was a runner-up in the Bundesliga in 1999, 2000 and 2002 and he reached the DFB Pokal final but was suspended for Champions League final in 2002 after picking up a yellow card in the semi-final.
After four years Zé Roberto moved on to Bayern Munich in 2002. He was champion of Germany three times with Bayern and also a DFB Pokal winner as many times. After one year at FC Santos he returned to the Bavarian capital and won the double with FC Bayern in 2008.
From the 2009/10 season, Zé Roberto played for Hamburg SV for the next two years. Overall he made 339 appearances in the Bundesliga and scored 38 goals. Zé Roberto did not end his career at the age of 37 but after a one-year offer from HSV he chose to move to Qatar where he played for six months.
He spent the last six years of his career back home in Brazil. After Porto Alegre he played for Palmeiras Sao Paulo in December 2014. He won the Brazilian cup competition with the club in 2015 and the Brazil league a year later. He received a great reception from his teammates and spectators after his last game at the age of 43 in November 2017.
Zé Roberto played 86 games for Brazil and scored six goals.
At the end of his playing career, he was technical adviser to Palmeiras but gave that post up in December 2019 when he became an ambassador of the club.
In 2023 he was part owner of the sports marketing agency Flashforward and with them he bought the Brazilian provincial club Esporte Sao Bento a year later. The long-term target is to win promotion to the Brazilian top-flight. But Zé is primarily interested in promoting youth football. He is not only a smart businessman but also a troubleshooter and a source of support. That made him very popular with his clubs and teammates during his playing career. He still plays at the age of 50. He also has a presence online with a training programme on Instagram as a fitness influencer. He has 2.8 million followers.
In Leverkusen he is still seen as an elegant, dribbling left-back with his strengths more in attack but he was also able to defend well. Ze Roberto was voted into the dream team of 40 years in the Bundesliga by Bayer 04 fans in 2019.
Minas Hantzidis was born on 4 July 1966 in Kettwig, near Essen, and he grew up in Germany. He developed a passion for football at a young age and, whilst still a youth player, moved from Wuppertaler SV to Bayer 04. The attacking and goal-scoring midfielder then made a name for himself in his first senior season at Bayer 04. In the reserve team, he scored goal after goal in the first half of the season, soon began training with the first team and was brought on as a substitute for the first time by manager Erich Ribbeck on 22 November 1985 in a home match against Bayern Munich.
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Sascha was born on 3 July 1986 in Leverkusen. He is the son of former Bundesliga 2 player Manfred Dum, who mainly scored goals for Union Solingen but also played for FC Saarbrücken, SC Freiburg and Wuppertaler SV. Sascha started playing for the youth teams at HSV Langenfeld at an early age. There, he caught the eye of scouts from Bayer 04 and joined the club at a young age. Following a growth spurt in the U15 team, which forced him to take a nine-month break, the left-footed player finally had the ideal conditions to establish himself in the Bayer 04 youth ranks. Even as an U17 player, he made the leap into the U19 team. Blessed with immense pace, Sascha primarily played in attacking midfield. Not the most technically gifted, but possessing a powerful shot, he found himself training with the first team in the summer of 2005 alongside Gonzalo Castro, while he was still a U19 player.
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The Werkself could not have hoped for a better start to the Bundesliga 2 North season in 1976/77. At the end of a week-long training camp in Quickborn, Schleswig-Holstein, coach Willibert Kremer’s side secured two convincing victories over BSC Brunsbüttel (5–0) and TuS Holstein Quickborn (6–0). Following this flying start, Bayer 04 faced a considerably tougher challenge on 23 July 1976 at 19:30 CEST at the Ulrich Haberland Stadium against Bundesliga side Karlsruher SC.
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On 27 June 2001, new head coach Klaus Toppmöller and his assistant Peter Hermann led the Werkself out of the changing rooms for their first training session. Joining them as they stepped onto the pitch at training ground 1 were the four new signings: Hans Jörg Butt, Yildiray Bastürk (with special permission from VfL Bochum, as Bayer 04 and VfL had not yet agreed on a transfer fee), Zoltan Sebescen and Michael Zepek, the record holder for appearances for the youth national team.
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Hans Sarpei was born on 28 June 1976 in Tema, Ghana, and came to Germany with his parents at the age of three, where he grew up in Cologne. Even before he was born, his mother and father worked in Hamburg in the import-export sector. There they met an older man who introduced them to German culture and supported them. Out of gratitude, Hans was later given his first name, although this man died before he was born. Hans comes from a sporting family; his older brother Edward and his nephews Hans Nunoo Sarpei and Kingsley Sarpei were or are also professional footballers.
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