The Werkself will play "with the cross on the chest" at home in the new season. There will be a prominent red cross on the black home shirt That is an expression of the link to the Bayer Works, the source of both the club and the city of Leverkusen. The shirt has been available for a week at the online shop as well as at the Bayer 04 fan shops.
And the special design has gone down well with the fans. Compared with last year, nearly twice as many home shirts have been sold in the same period of time. The positive response is comparable with the enthusiastic reaction of the Leverkusen support to the Werkself home shirt two years ago. Back then, there was a reminder of the legendary Champions League season in 2001/02, when Bayer 04 reached the final against Real Madrid, with a home shirt with black and red stripes that immediately after its introduction led to a similar run as in this year.
Bayer 04 fans can look forward to the new 2023/24 away shirt this week. It will be launched on Friday morning 21 July and the Werkself will play in the new shirts for the first time in that evening's friendly against SC Paderborn. New signings Granit Xhaka, Jonas Hofmann and Alejandro Grimaldo are set to feature.
The kick-off at the IMS Arena in Velbert is at 17.30 CEST with tickets available to Bayer 04 fans from 16.00 CEST at counter four. And the new away kit will also be available on site.
Bayer 04 will present the third kit for the 2023/24 season on 9 August.
Strengthening the Bayer 04 Leverkusen youth teams: Konstantinos Kotsifakis will join the Werkself from Bundesliga 2 club Hertha Berlin for the 2026/27 season, where he will be a permanent member of the Leverkusen U19 coaching set-up. The German-Greek will also take on an operational role in coaching the Bayer 04 Future Team. The 29-year-old was most recently head coach of the U17s at Hertha Berlin.
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Another award for the Bayer 04 head groundsman and staff: After coming top in the 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2024/25 seasons, the BayArena pitch came second in the Bundesliga Pitch of the Year ranking for the 2025/26 season. VfL Wolfsburg secured the top spot this year, with TSG Hoffenheim in third place.
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Opening opponents, derby weekends, the opponents in the season finale: This information and more will be available to Bayer 04 fans on Thursday, 2 July, when the 2026/27 Bundesliga fixture list is published.
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Rüdiger Vollborn has been at the club for 40 years, he holds the record number of Bundesliga appearances for the club (401) and is the only Bayer 04 player to have won both the UEFA Cup (1988) and the DFB Pokal (1993). And the Berliner stayed with the Werkself after ending his impressive playing career as he worked as a goalkeeping coach for the following nine years. Vollborn now works under the Bayer Cross as a fan liaison officer and club archivist. Since February 2021, the personal Black and Red lexicon takes Werkself fans under the heading of 'Rudi recounts...' on a brief trip through the history of Bayer 04 every month…
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