
The Bayer 04 travelling party landed in Munich shortly before 19:00 on Friday before heading to the team hotel. After a quiet night, the Werkself are now preparing to face the champions this afternoon.
While the majority of the Leverkusen delegation will return home on Saturday evening, Simon Rolfes will stay in Bavaria. Our sporting director is a guest on “Sky90” with Lena Wurzenberger of Bild and Lothar Matthäus to talk about the game against Bayern. Host Patrick Wasserziehr kicks off his show at 11:30 on Sunday.
Fernando Carro will fly back with the team and take part in “Die Lage der Liga” from the BayArena on Sunday morning. The 57-year-old CEO will discuss latest Bundesliga news from 9:00 with presenter Walter M. Straten and Alfred Draxler on www.bild.tv.
The DFB have appointed Daniel Siebert as the referee for Bayer 04’s game at Bayern. The 37-year-old has overseen 17 fixtures involving Leverkusen, of which 15 have been in the Bundesliga and two in the DFB Cup. The record so far is seven wins, three draws and seven defeats. The Werkself have received 32 yellows cards and four reds. His assistants are Lasse Koslowski and Jan Seidel. Robert Schröder is the VAR.
Werkself Radio will once again be freely available to all Bayer 04 fans for this game. Coverage starts at 15:00 – half an hour before kick-off – with Niko Hartmann live at the Allianz Arena. You can tune in on the new Bayer 04 app or the website.

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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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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"In every ending lies a new beginning" is a well-known saying. This phrase has probably never been more apt at Bayer 04. After winning the Bundesliga in 2023/24 and finishing as runners-up in 2024/25, the summer was the most eventful ever in terms of transfers. Over ten players and the coach, including the coaching staff, left the club. A lot of the heroes of the double-winning side began a new chapter. It was the end of an era. And at the same time the beginning of a new, very exciting and promising chapter for Leverkusen. The Werkself welcomed more than a dozen new arrivals, including experienced title-winners and young talents, to build a new "foundation for a successful team capable of winning titles" under the Bayer Cross, as managing director sport Simon Rolfes put it. A new spirit, a new hunger, a new story was to be created. Bayer04.de looks back at the first few months of this story and the final act of the preseason.
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43 points at the end of the last Bundesliga season were not only more than ever before for the Bayer 04 Women, but also led to a record fourth-place finish. That was followed by a Hinrunde with many more victories, but also some setbacks. In an interview with bayer04.de, sporting director Achim Feifel takes stock at the end of the year.
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With their wonderful goals, Martin Terrier and Florian Wirtz are up for the Bundesliga Goal of the Year 2025. Voting for fans will run exclusively via the official Bundesliga app until Sunday, 4 January.
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