He knows what makes the Black and Yellows tick: Kerem Demirbay, under the Bayer Cross for two years, spent most of his youth career at BVB. Ahead of the top match between the Werkself and Borussia Dortmund on Saturday, 11 September (kick-off: 15.30 CEST), the 28-year-old also talked about which game for BVB he remembers best. What Demirbay expects from the visitors and what his targets are for the game at the BayArena, can be found on the brand new Bayer 04 app. You can download it HERE.
Like several of their teammates at the start of the week, Florian Wirtz and Panos Retsos have ended their international duty. Youngster Wirtz played for Germany against Iceland. The team under head coach Hansi Flick mastered their challenge comfortably with a 4-0 win.
The visitors, with Bayer 04 homegrown talent Kai Havertz (now at Chelsea) coming on at the start of the second half, did not concede for the third game in succession. The 18-year-old Wirtz again came off the bench, as in the previous two games, this time replacing Leon Goretzka on 80 minutes.
Like Germany, Greece were winners in the third and final game in the current international break. The match in Athens against Sweden ended in a 2-1 victory. Werkself central defender Panos Retsos was on the subs bench for the full 90 minutes.
Three Black and Red players are in action in the early hours of Friday morning and that marks the end of the international break from a Bayer 04 perspective – all in the South American World Cup qualifiers. At 0.30 CEST, Ecuador with Werkself new signing Piero Hincapie are away to Uruguay, and Charles Aránguiz and Chile face Colombia half an hour later. From 1.30 CEST, Argentina with Exequiel Palacios have a home game in Buenos Aires against Bolivia. Good luck, lads!
Oliver Kahn, the CEO at Bayern Munich, will represent the champions of Germany on the board of the European Club Association. The 52-year-old will succeed Michael Gerlinger (Legal director at FC Bayern) in November. Kahn will join Fernando Carro, the Bayer 04 CEO, on the ECA board. The third Bundesliga representative on the board is Hans-Joachim Watzke of Borussia Dortmund.
These numbers inspire confidence of full stadiums in the Bundesliga again soon: Just 0.000006 per cent of football fans have tested positive for Covid-19 since the return of crowds at games. In 73 games with more than 900,000 tickets sold in the Bundesliga, the second division and the Supercup there were only six cases of coronavirus from contract tracing. In addition: None of the clubs are aware of any of the six people infecting others at a stadium.
“Although he plays for our rivals Leverkusen, somebody like Moussa Diaby creates great joy with his play.” These words were chosen by Max Eberl, sporting director at Borussia Mönchengladbach, in a recent interview with Sport Bild in response to the question of which Bundesliga players excite him at the moment.”
In the clash with Eberl’s Foals (4-0), the 22-year-old, who was recently called up to the France squad for the first time, scored the third goal. Diaby has scored two goals and provided one assist in the first three matchdays.
In Germany, the temperatures are currently around zero, leaving even professional footballers freezing - but not the Bayer 04 Women. Roberto Pätzold's team have fled the cold to the south and are preparing for the second half of the season at a training camp in the Algarve, almost 2,000 kilometres away from home as the crow flies. The Leverkusen squad landed in Faro on Saturday morning and have already completed the first three training sessions over the weekend.
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It was a disappointing Saturday night. The Werkself lost 4-1 to VfB Stuttgart to start the new year on Bundesliga matchday 16 in 2025/26, a result that left both players and fans disappointed. "We played without any passion," said Alejandro Grimaldo honestly afterwards. Teammate Jarell Quansah was even more self-critical, emphasising: "We were miles off it in the first half. You can't put in a performance like that, especially in front of our own fans and I can only apologise to them, to be honest." Read on for the reaction, facts and stats from the clash with VfB Stuttgart in the Werkself review.
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Women’s team forward Paulina Bartz is leaving Bayer 04 Leverkusen to play for Hamburg SV until the end of the season. The 20-year-old, whose contract runs to 2027, joins the Bundesliga newcomers on loan until the summer.
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Jarell Quansah and Alejandro Grimaldo speak to Werkself-TV following Bayer 04's 4-1 defeat to VfB Stuttgart on Bundesliga Matchday 16...
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