Birthday greetings, three times! Before the training session on Tuesday morning, there was a serenade for three birthday boys at the Werkself: Goalkeeper Niklas Lomb is 27, goalkeeping coach David Thiel is now 36 and assistant coach Xaver Zembrod celebrates his 54th birthday. Fernando Carro, chairman of the board at Bayer 04, was a year older on Monday. Bayer 04 wishes many happy returns to one and all on their birthdays.
While his teammates have been sharing access to their holidays over the past couple of weeks, there was less on social networks about Kevin Volland. The 27-year-old made his return at the weekend with good news: With a baby in his arms and the words "Proud dad of two", he revealed a happy secret kept away from the public up till now. His second child was born on 22 July. Congratulations to the Volland family.
The German Football League (DFL) has called another emergency general meeting next week for the 36 clubs in the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2. In the virtual general meeting on Tuesday, 4 August, the main item on the agenda is the possible return of spectators to stadiums in the 2020/21 season. The background to this meeting is the need to make a decision on what policies the clubs should follow, e.g. regarding away fans, standing and the sale of alcohol plus track and tracing in the event of a coronavirus outbreak.
Last Sunday revealed the champions of the Italian top-flight Serie A: With two games to play, Juventus can no longer be caught by a possible Europa League quarter-final opponent for the Werkself. The last two matches of the league campaign see Inter Milan trying to qualify for the group stages of the Champions League. The second possible opponent in the quarter-finals, Getafe, ended their season in eighth place on 19 July, which is outside a European qualification position but they do have more time to to recover before the Europa League restarts.
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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