Moussa Diaby is on the verge of making his debut for France. Coach Didier Deschamps picked the 22-year-old for the first time on Thursday for the the international fixtures over the next two weeks. Diaby has previously played for the junior France teams from the U18s upwards.
Argentina have also announced their squad – and Exequiel Palacios has been called up again. Other national associations have caught up this afternoon: The Ivory Coast have called up Odilon Kossounou, Chile Charles Aránguiz and Greece Panos Retsos. Also on international duty is Emrehan Gedikli. The youngster is in the Germany U19 squad under coach Hannes Wolf for the first time.
The Bayer 04 top management are on the road a lot at the moment. CEO Fernando Carro flew to Istanbul on Wednesday to complete a packed programme of activities. The 57-year-old took part in a meeting of the UEFA Club Competitions Committee (CCC) on Thursday morning and the Board der European Club Association met after lunch. The ECA represents around 230 professional clubs in Europe. 24 board members of the organisation meet regularly. Carro was appointed to the board in July 2021.
The 57-year-old was at the UEFA event for the Champions League draw in the evening and on Friday afternoon it will be exciting from a Werkself perspective. Fernando Carro will be present at 13.00 CEST when the draw is held for the group stage of the Europa League. 32 teams are in the running including the Werkself and Eintracht Frankfurt with the draw broadcast on UEFA.com.
After sporting director Simon Rolfes was a guest on the Sport1 broadcast Doppelpass for the first Bundesliga matchday, Rudi Völler will represent the colours of Bayer 04 on TV on Sunday, 29 August. The sporting managing director is a guest on ‘Sky90’. Patrick Wasserziehr will welcome Völler plus Toni Schumacher and Sky pundit Lothar Matthäus. They will discuss the coming Bundesliga matchday, the start to the season and other current football issues. The programme starts at 11.30 CEST and will be broadcast on the pay TV channel Sky Bundesliga 1.
The floods in July not only affected Leverkusen and surrounding areas but also hit the Aachen area hard. The region where Kai Havertz was born and brought up. Our homegrown player, who wore the Bayer 04 shirt from 2010 to 2020, was very moved by the damage and suffering and he started a donation campaign for the flood victims in tandem with the Red Cross. Here is the site for purchasing football boots designed by Kai at auction.
From this season, the Europa League will be broadcast by the RTL media group. The games will either be shown on the free-to-air TV channels RTL or Nitro, or they will be on the subscription streaming portal TVNOW. The media company has set up a team hat to explain details of the competition and clubs involved. There will be two female TV presenters with a Bayer 04 connection. The broadcasts will be hosted by Laura Papendick, who gained her first media experience at Bayer 04 TV. In 2016 she joined Sky Sport News, then in 2019 Sport1, and since the summer the former competitive swimmer from Bergisch-Gladbach has worked for the RTL Group. She will be working with Anna Kraft. The TV journalist grew up in Leverkusen and is a Werkself fan. Black and Red women’s power for RTL and the Europa League.
The Bayer 04 Women are back in action at the weekend. And, thanks to new TV contracts, the FLYERALARM Women’s Bundesliga has a “new presence level.” “We definitely wanted a higher profile and we taken a big step forwards,”said Hannelore Ratzeburg, vice-president of the German Football Association (DFB). For the first time, all 132 games will be broadcast live on MagentaSport and one Saturday match will be a fixed part on the ARD Sportschau. One game per matchday will be continue to be shown live on Eurosport on free-to-air TV.
The Bayer 04 Women start on Sunday, 29 August with a 13.00 CEST kick-off against FC Carl Zeiss Jena and the first home game on the following weekend – Sunday, 5 September, 13.30 CEST – against SGS Essen will both be on MagentaSport. The home game on matchday 3 against Turbine Potsdam (10 September, 19.15 CEST) is on Eurosport.
A special surprise: during the preview for the 'Fierté Burkinabè' documentary about Edmond Tapsoba, Bayer 04 directors Fernando Carro and Simon Rolfes announced Tapsoba's contract extension until 2031 together with the centre-back. He then spoke to Werkself-TV about his time in Leverkusen so far and future ambitions...
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This evening was deeply moving: At a really special setting, Bayer 04 exclusively presented the specially produced documentary ‘Fierté Burkinabè’ ("Burkinabe Pride") about Edmond Tapsoba on Tuesday. For the preview at the BayArena, the parents of the Werkself player and other close companions travelled all the way from his African homeland Burkina Faso. The 45-minute film shows Tapsoba's extraordinary career from his beginnings in Ouagadougou to Leverkusen as well as the work of his foundation "Fondation Edmond Tapsoba", with representatives from Burkina Faso also present. Fans can watch the documentary free of charge on Werkself TV and YouTube from Wednesday night at 20:00 CEST.
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Bayer 04 have signed left-back Carolin Simon from champions Bayern Munich for the coming season. The 33-year-old former Germany international, who played for Leverkusen from 2013 to 2016, has signed a contract to 30 June 2028.
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Bayer 04 Women have strengthened for the coming season with the signing of Lobke Loone. The 23-year-old Dutch striker joins from Utrecht on a contract until 30 June 2028.
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Werkself-TV shows the highlights of the Bayer 04 women's 4-1 win against SC Freiburg on the 23rd matchday of the Google Pixel Frauen-Bundesliga 2025/26.
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