Florian Wirtz had an impressive season in 2021/22 before his torn cruciate in the derby against FC Köln in March. The reporters at the sports magazine Sportbild have named 19-year-old as the player of the season at the Werkself. The attacking midfielder has “finally developed into a leader on the pitch.” The Bayer 04 number 27 has underlined that the impression with numbers: Wirtz has been directly involved in 17 goals in 24 league games. The Germany international scored seven goals and provided ten assists. The right-footer scored or set up a goal at an average of every 104 minutes.
Another Bundesliga player previously at Leverkusen also impressed the Sportbild editors. Goalkeeper Marcel Lotka was named as player of the season at Hertha Berlin. The 20-year-old spent three years under the Bayer Cross from 2017 before signing for the second team at Hertha in the summer of 2020. Lotka made eight appearances at the start of the season and then went on to make his Bundesliga debut against SC Freiburg on matchday 24. The Poland U21 international has since become first choice in goal and has only missed one league game. The Duisburg-born keeper suffered a broken nose and concussion in the game against Borussia Dortmund last Saturday (14 May). It remains to be seen whether he will be available for tomorrow’s Bundesliga play-off against Hamburg SV (19 May).
Florian Wirtz had an impressive season in 2021/22 before his torn cruciate in the derby against FC Köln in March. The reporters at the sports magazine Sportbild have named 19-year-old as the player of the season at the Werkself. The attacking midfielder has “finally developed into a leader on the pitch.” The Bayer 04 number 27 has underlined that the impression with numbers: Wirtz has been directly involved in 17 goals in 24 league games. The Germany international scored seven goals and provided ten assists. The right-footer scored or set up a goal at an average of every 104 minutes.
Another Bundesliga player previously at Leverkusen also impressed the Sportbild editors. Goalkeeper Marcel Lotka was named as player of the season at Hertha Berlin. The 20-year-old spent three years under the Bayer Cross from 2017 before signing for the second team at Hertha in the summer of 2020. Lotka made eight appearances at the start of the season and then went on to make his Bundesliga debut against SC Freiburg on matchday 24. The Poland U21 international has since become first choice in goal and has only missed one league game. The Duisburg-born keeper suffered a broken nose and concussion in the game against Borussia Dortmund last Saturday (14 May). It remains to be seen whether he will be available for tomorrow’s Bundesliga play-off against Hamburg SV (19 May).
Winger Synne Skinnes Hansen is leaving Bayer 04 Leverkusen at the end of the season. The 29-year-old, who will be out of contract, is set to join Valerenga IF back home in Norway.
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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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Analysing and further developing goalkeeping together is the target of the annual goalkeeping coaches meeting of the German Football Association (DFB). The goalkeeping coaches in the Bundesliga, Bundesliga 2 and the third division, divided into regional groups, meet every year under the guidance of DFB goalkeeping coordinator Marc Ziegler. Following 2023, the meeting of the goalkeeping coaches of professional clubs from the Western region took place yesterday, Tuesday 29 April, at the BayArena for the second time. The Werkself goalkeeping coach David Thiel acted as the host of the meeting and he made an impromptu contribution.
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Bayer 04 Leverkusen have agreed to loan U19 striker Artem Stepanov to FC Nürnberg, currently tenth in Bundesliga 2, for the 2025/26 season. The Ukrainian centre-forward is set to gain match practice at a high level under the guidance of FCN coach and World Cup winner Miroslav Klose. The loan is due to run for twelve months.
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