Sven Jablonski has been appointed to oversee this match. The 32-year-old has previously taken charge of 10 games involving Leverkusen, which have produced seven Bayer 04 wins, a draw and two defeats. His assistants are Sascha Thielert and Lasse Koslowski. Daniel Siebert is the VAR.
A total of 871 fans are making the journey from Leverkusen to cheer on the team at the Red Bull Arena in Leipzig.
Leipzig have lost just two of the 12 Bundesliga encounters with the Werkself, scoring in every game. However, Bayer 04 won the last meeting 3-1 in Leipzig last season. But Die Roten Bullen have been very good on their own patch this team, leading the Bundesliga’s home table with 13 points and a +10 goal difference. Marco Rose is the first RB coach to win his first three Bundesliga home games in charge.
However, his fourth game at the helm at the Red Bull Arena is against Leverkusen, against whom the 46-year-old has suffered the most losses (four, same as vs. Leipzig and Bayern) and conceded the most goals (17, same as vs. Bayern) of any team he’s faced in the Bundesliga. His last encounter with the Werkself produced a 5-2 home loss in charge of Borussia Dortmund in February. That’s also the only time one of his teams has conceded five times in a Bundesliga home game.
Our opponents have got back towards their best under Rose, even ending Real Madrid’s 16-game unbeaten run during the week with a 3-2 win in the Champions League. Their domestic form also looks on the up since the Leipzig native took over. They have picked up 11 points in six league games under the 46-year-old. Only Union Berlin and Eintracht Frankfurt (both 12) have earned more points since Matchday 6 than RB. They also boast the division’s best attack in that time (14 goals) after Bayern (15), led by Christopher Nkunku, who leads the division’s pre-matchday scoring chart with eight goals alongside Niclas Füllkrug and Marcus Thuram.
Four Bayer 04 players are in action at the 35th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations being played in Morocco from 21 December to 18 January 2026: Eliesse Ben Seghir for the hosts, Edmond Tapsoba with Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Maza for Algeria and Christian Kofane with Cameroon. Updates on the AFCON matches involving Werkself players...
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After being nominated for the Bundesliga Goal of the Year 2025, Martin Terrier's wonderful strike for the opener against FC Köln is now also up for selection for the ARD Sportschau Goal of the Month award for December 2025. Bayer 04 fans have until 19:00 CET on 10 January to vote for the French forward.
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After a break of almost two weeks, the Bayer 04 Women begin preparing for games in 2026 on Sunday. Bayer04.de provides an overview of the dates at the start of the second half of the season.
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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 personalised 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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