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 Bayer 04 women’s team secured a win in the friendly during the international break. Without a total of eight international players, coach Roberto Pätzold’s team defeated Bundesliga 2 side Borussia Mönchengladbach 3–1 at the Kurtekotten Training Centre, thanks to goals from Lobke Loonen (1’, penalty), Caroline Kehrer (41') and Valentina Mädl (66').
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Bayer 04 will have to manage without striker Christian Kofane in the coming weeks. The 20-year-old sustained a muscle injury to his left thigh on international duty with the Cameroon national team during the recent international break. This will prevent him from playing in the upcoming Werkself matches.
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FSV Mainz 05 went into the international break on the back of an away win at Borussia Mönchengladbach. Currently sixth in the table, the Rheinhessen side – who have been impressive on the road – now aim to continue their good start to the Bundesliga campaign at home when they face the Werkself on Saturday, 10 October (kick-off: 15:30 CEST). In terms of squad selection, Urs Fischer once again has more options at his disposal. Up front, the Mainz coach is likely to continue relying on what is currently the league’s most successful strike partnership. The lowdown on our next opponents.
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Exciting experiences and exclusive insights into the Werkself and the BayArena awaited the young footballers from the BA04 Football Academy Guangzhou in China during their visit to the Rhineland this week. As well as taking part in a joint training session with the Bayer 04 Football Academy, the youngsters marvelled at the Bundesliga club’s stadium during a guided tour. The highlight of the visit was a private press conference with former Bayer 04 striker Stefan Kießling, during which he shared tips from his own career with the young players. On Saturday afternoon, 10 October, the group will round off their visit by supporting the Werkself in the away match in Mainz.
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Fans ask, Carolin Simon answers: As part of Bayer 04’s second Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on Reddit, the Leverkusen captain took questions from the community. The full-back, who returned to the club this summer after ten years away, set aside an hour and a half for the Q&A session with fans, offering a very personal insight into, amongst other things, her daily life as a footballer and her role as captain, as well as her passion for Pokémon.
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