In the twelfth minute, the referee Florian Jäger abandoned the match at the Alois Latini Stadium on Lake Zell due to heavy thunderstorm. With clear weather at the kick-off a storm drew in with thunder and lightning making it impossible to carry on playing the friendly for health and safety reasons.
The Werkself looked good up to the point play was halted with the best chance in this brief encounter falling to Kyriakos Papadopoulos. A corner from Hakan Calhanoglu was headed against the bar by the Greece central defender. He attempted to score with the rebound but the Teutonia keeper Yannik Dauth pulled off a great save. The two teams raced to the changing rooms shortly after that and the final decision to abandon the game came 15 minutes later.
The next friendly for Roger Schmidt and his team is on Thursday night. The Italian top-flight club Fiorentina provide the opposition in an 18.00 CET kick-off at the Alois Latini Stadium. Before that, the Werkself will be working hard in training in Zell am See-Kaprun to ensure being fully fit for the start of the season with the first match on 21 August away to SC Hauenstein in the DFB Cup.
Match stats:
Bayer 04: Lomb – Jedvaj, Papadopoulos, Ramalho, Wendell – Aránguiz, Yurchenko – Öztunali, Calhanoglu, Mehmedi – Pohjanpalo.
It couldn't have been any tighter! Despite winning four of six games in the online preliminary round in Showdown 1 of the VBL Club Championship 2026/27, Leverkusen eSports duo Marc and Sean Landwehr didn't make it through to the offline knockout round. Level on points (12) with seven other teams, Leverkusen were the only team with this points tally not to progress as they had the worst single-game record compared to their rivals.
Show more
Bayer 04 are away to Croatian champions Dinamo Zagreb on Matchday 5 of the league phase of the 2026/27 UEFA Europa League. The game kicks off on Thursday 26 November at 18:45 CET at the Maksimir Stadium. All the information on ticket sales.
Show more
It wasn’t just on the pitch that there was cause for celebration around the Werkself’s 2–1 home win against SC Freiburg. Plenty of happy faces could be seen near the dugouts at half-time too. Once again, CEO Fernando Carro, alongside former striker and club ambassador Stefan Kießling, paid tribute to eight supporters’ clubs celebrating up to their 30th anniversary on behalf of Bayer 04.
Show more
A disciplined and impressive team performance secured a 2–1 victory for the Werkself against league leaders SC Freiburg, who had remained unbeaten across all competitions until then; two players once again stood out at the BayArena: Artisic dribbler Ibrahim Maza scored Leverkusen’s first goal himself and set up the second, whilst goal-getter Patrik Schick had set up the equaliser and netted the winner. In doing so, the Czechia international set a remarkable club record. Both head coach Carles Martínez and the media were full of praise afterwards. Maza himself was also delighted with the growing rapport with “super striker” Schick: “The more we play together, the better we understand each other.” The Werkself’s comeback secured their fourth home win in their fourth home game of the season.
Show more
