Dressed in their black and red training kit and – as is essential these days – wearing face masks, the Werkself players and coaching staff explored Prague at lunchtime (see gallery below). Rest was on the agenda after lunch at the team hotel. The group will set off for the Eden Arena after the pre-match meal in the early evening.
The Werks11 Radio duo are back to full strength: After being sidelined through illness – he missed the games against Mainz and Nice as well as Augsburg – Niko Hartmann has returned just in time for the clash at Slavia Prague. The experienced radio reporter joins Cedric Pick on Thursday to accompany Werkself fans through the evening. In a change from the usual procedure, they will not be at the game but instead at the BayArena. The duo will be on air 30 minutes before kick-off – tune in at bayer04.de or on the Bayer 04 app.
Anybody preferring to watch the game on television can take in the match and build-up on free TV at RTL Nitro from 20.15 CET plus the streaming service DAZN.
Five Bayer 04 Women players are on the road with their national teams; two have already played: Dora Zeller and Lilla Turanyi started for Hungary in a Euro qualifier but ended up on the losing side in a 2-1 defeat against Slovakia. Zeller was substituted on 87 minutes while Turanyi went the full distance. Henrietta Csiszár had to drop out at short notice due to an injury. Information on the current international break can be found HERE.
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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