The German Football Association (DFB) have appointed Christian Dingert as today's match referee for the game at the MEWA Arena in Mainz. The 42-year-old has been in charge of twelve Werkself games to date resulting in four wins, three draws and five defeats. His assistants are Timo Gerach and Thomas Gorniak and Dr Felix Brych is in the VAR booth. Have a good game.
Bayer 04 have scored in all of the past ten Bundesliga matches against Mainz 05. That is the longest run of goals for the Werkself against an opponent currently in the Bundesliga. The statistics generally favour the team led by head coach Gerardo Seoane: 17 wins, five draws and 11 defeats in 33 meetings. The Werkself also come out top in a comparison of statistics. But that was also the case before the last two home games against Augsburg in Hoffenheim – with both games ending in defeat for Leverkusen.
Continuing with winning ways: In spite of losing key players like former captain Moussa Niakhaté, who has joined Nottingham Forest in the Premier League, and also Jeremiah St. Juste, who has signed for the Lisbon club Sporting CP, Mainz have been able to maintain their impressive performances from last season. FSV have made a respectable start to the season with two wins and one draw in the first three games and they are currently fourth in the table. The team from the Rhineland Palatinate also won their DFB Cup game with ease (3-0 against Erzgebirge Aue). All the key information on today's opponents from Mainz can be found in the lowdown on our next opponents.
You can also follow the Seoane team as usual via Werkself Radio. Anybody unable to support the team from the away stand at the MEWA Arena, can listen to the radio broadcast from half an hour before kick-off. Cedric Pick and Niko Hartmann will again keep you up-to-date on the match against Mainz 05. Match information is also available via live text commentary. Both the radio broadcast and the text updates can be found at bayer04.de as well as on the Bayer 04 app.
Today's Black and Red birthday boy is Helmut Winklhofer who is 61 today. The player born in Lower Bavaria joined Leverkusen from Bayern Munich in 1982 and after three years and 98 Bundesliga appearances he returned to Munich and went on to win the German league title three times in succession and the DFB Cup with the German record champions. Bayer 04 wish Helmut many happy returns.
The date for the Bayer 04 Women's DFB Pokal Round of 16 tie has been set. As announced by the German Football Association (DFB) on Wednesday, the Leverkusen Women will play league rivals Hamburger SV on Sunday, 16 November at 15:00 CET.
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A great honour for Eliesse Ben Seghir: The Italian sports newspaper Tuttosport has published the final shortlist of 25 nominees for this year's Golden Boy award - including Werkself player Eliesse Ben Seghir. The award will be presented in November.
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They narrowly missed out on the title in the spring of this year as they enjoyed their most successful season to date under the Bayer Cross. Now they want to build on that success. In an interview ahead of today's start of the new season in the VBL Club Championship by WOW (live on the Bayer 04 app from 18:00 CEST), the two Bayer 04 eSports players and cousins Marc and Sean Landwehr talk about the organisational changes to the VBL CC and their everyday lives as professional gamers and they also give pro tips for the new EA FC 26.
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A Black and Red player in the U20 World Cup final in Chile. Alejo Sarco and Argentina beat Colombia 1-0 in the semi-final on Wednesday night. Morocco, who knocked out France, now await in the final on Sunday night.
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