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1996/97 – The 4-2 victory in the opener against champions of Germany Borussia Dortmund and the following 3-1 win at MSV Duisburg, with a hat-trick from Ulf Kirsten, precede two sobering performances: A 1-0 home defeat against Fortuna Düsseldorf and four days later a heavy 4-2 loss at FC Bayern. An internal team evening in the hotel room of team captain Jens Nowotny a few hours after the disaster in Munich produces a clear outcome after an intensive discussion: It can't carry on like this!
The team use the next ten days before the home game against 1860 Munich for two things: Focused preparations for the match and the planning for an internal team evening in the party cellar of 'Zecke' Neuendorf's landlord. As both the match, with a 3-0 win, and the party are a complete success and footballers are sometimes a little bit superstitious, this one-off event became more permanent.
After every home game in that season, the players along with their wives and partners really party for a couple of hours at 'Zecke's'. This time together leads to the already solid group becoming a band of brothers who excited the Bayer 04 fans in that season. They experienced a great football match on 22 September 1996 in the clash against SC Freiburg: The Werkself win 5-3. The TV highlights can be seen above.
2001/02 – Four days after the 2-1 win in the Champions League group match against Barcelona, coach Klaus Toppmöller makes just one change to his starting line-up: Yildiray Bastürk, a substitute in the Barcelona game and the goalscorer at 1-1, replaces Zoltan Sebescen in the starting eleven. The BayArena is sold out on that late Sunday afternoon with a crowd of 22,500. In SC Freiburg, the Werkself entertain a team who have always proved to be tricky opponents in recent years.
From the first minute, Bayer 04 follow on from the performance levels of recent weeks and overcome the team from the Breisgau. The 4-1 win keeps the group led by captain Jens Nowotny in touch with league leaders FC Kaiserslautern.
The line-up:
Jörg Butt – Bernd Schneider, Lucio, Jens Nowotny, Diego Placente, Carsten Ramelow, Michael Ballack, Yildiray Bastürk, Zé Roberto, Oliver Neuville, Ulf Kirsten
In this video you can watch impressive and important goals in the history of Bayer 04 in the month of October. It is not always about the beauty of the goals but also about remembering special games and players.
Show moreThe Werkself secured victory against Bayern Munich for the first time on 1 November 1986. On matchday 12, Bayer 04 beat the Bundesliga league leaders 3-0 at the Olympic Stadium in Munich and go top of the table.
Show moreTorben Hoffman was born in Kiel on 27 October 1974. In his youth he played for TuS Schwarz-Weiß Elmschershagen. The qualified policeman joined Holstein Kiel in 1993. Two years later he moved on to VfB Lübeck in Bundesliga two. After relegation with Lübeck in 1997 he came to attention of SC Freiburg and they signed the defender. The team relegated from the Bundesliga went straight back up with Torben who moved under the Bayer Cross in 1999 after another year in the Bundesliga. However, he was unable to establish himself at Leverkusen making only sporadic appearances and he was rarely in the starting XI. He played in a total of 30 games for the Werkself.
Show moreThomas ‘Thommy’ Reichenberger was born in Bad Kreuznach on 14 October 1974. The son of a former Bundesliga player – his father Max made 38 Bundesliga appearances for 1860 Munich – played for Eintracht Bad Kreuznach as a youth player before moving up to the first team.
Show moreManfred ‘Manni’ Pomp was born in Aachen on 25 October 1964. His first football club was the Aachen police sports club (PSV) but he signed for Alemannia Aachen after a year.
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