FC Eintracht Norderstedt or TSV Sasel – one of these two Hamburg amateur clubs can look forward to a big match against Bayer 04 after they qualified for the Hamburg association cup final on Sunday. That was the outcome of the draw for the first round of the DFB Cup (11-14 September) held on 26 July.
Regional League Norderstedt beat league rivals Altona 93, the former club of Jonathan Tah, 3-2 at their own ground. After going behind early on (2’), ‘EN’ turned the game round. After Altona levelled the scores at 2-2 (48’), Norderstedt were able to respond in the middle of the second half and score the winner on 68 minutes to ensure progress to the cup final. Sasel followed suit an hour later and were also able to celebrate going through to the final with a 3-0 away win at fellow Oberliga rivals SV Rugenbergen.
The Hamburg cup final will be part of an amateurs’ finals day on , 22 August (kick-off: 14.45 CEST/live on ARD), at the stadium in the Wolfgang Meyer sports complex in Hamburg-Stellingen.
Moving on to the Champions League: Leverkusen’s Bundesliga rivals RB Leipzig are in the semi-finals of Europe’s elite club competition thanks to a 2-1 win against Atlético Madrid. Former Werkself player Kevin Kampl played the full 90 minutes against the Spaniards. The Slovenian spent eleven years in the youth section at Bayer 04, and then went on to play for RB Salzburg and Borussia Dortmund before returning to Leverkusen in 2015 for two years. Kampl has been at Leipzig for the past three years – and he has been reunited with Markus Krösche in Saxony. The former Werkself assistant coach (July 2015 to March 2017 under Roger Schmidt) was appointed sporting director at RB Leipzig in the summer of 2019.
Kampl, Krösche and Co. face the top French side Paris Saint Germain on Tuesday (kick-off: 21.00 CET) in Portugal’s capital Lisbon, and the second semi-final on Wednesday involves Bayern Munich and Olympique Lyon (21.00 CET).
Until the summer of this year, Helmut Jungheim was the head of the youth academy at Bayer Leverkusen. Since 1 August, he has been in charge of the Bayer 04 coaches academy. Jungheim celebrates his 63rd birthday today (Monday); Bayer 04 wish him many happy returns!
The Werkself need a win in their penultimate match of the season at RB Leipzig on Monday evening (18:00 CEST) to keep their hopes of third place alive until the final day. After Eintracht Frankfurt lost on Saturday, Roberto Pätzold's side can close the gap on their rivals to two points and leave it all to play for next Sunday.
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Werkself TV shows the highlights of Bayer 04's 1-3 loss at VfB Stuttgart on Matchday 33 of the 2025/26 Bundesliga season...
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Down to fifth from fourth place despite taking an early lead: in the head-to-head for a Champions League spot, Bayer 04 were 1-0 up at VfB Stuttgart with just a minute played thanks to an Aleix Garcia strike, but ultimately lost 3-1 (2-1) to the more determined hosts. It meant the Swabians leapfrogged the Werkself in the Bundesliga table on the penultimate matchday.
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Today sees Bayer 04 go head-to-head with their next direct rivals in the race for Champions League qualification (kick-off 15:30 CEST). Opponents Stuttgart are currently fifth in the table, level on points with the Werkself but one place below them due to a three-goal inferior goal difference. The Black and Reds' record at Bad Cannstatt tells a clearer story: they've not lost at VfB for over 16 years. One important factor in securing what would be three crucial points away from home is Leverkusen's strength on the counter-attack. Whilst Stuttgart are also extremely dangerous going forward, they will be without their captain. Today’s matchday news.
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