Werkself players Florian Wirtz and Jonathan Tah were included in the kicker Team of Matchday 19 following the 2-1 win at Borussia Mönchengladbach. Wirtz was chosen for the third time this season and he received a high mark of 1.5. Central defender Tah received a mark of 2 from the football journal.
But that's not all: Wirtz' performance earned two other plaudits. BILD included the youngster in their Team of the Matchday. The 18-year-old was also voted Man of the Match on social media by fans of the Seoane team.
Midfield dynamo Robert Andrich earned a place in the DFL Team of the Week. The Bayer 04 number eight put in the most running in the away win at Borussia Mönchengladbach with a total distance covered of 11.5 kilometres and he also scored his third Bundesliga goal for the Black and Reds. Congratulations.
Do you think our youngster has earned a place in the FIFA Team of the Year (TOTY) with his performances to date? Then help Florian Wirtz to be in the team of the eleven best players in 2021 before the vote closes on Tuesday. Click HERE to vote.
The Leverkusen player is one of 80 from around the world nominated for the vote by the video game manufacturer EA Sports. The final TOTY will be announced on 22 January.
The Ivory Coast have missed the chance to qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations Round of 16 with a game to spare. Following the 1-0 win against Equatorial Guinea in their first match the Ivorians could only manage to draw 2-2 with Sierra Leone. Werkself central defender Odilon Kossounou replaced Eric Bailly (Manchester United) in added time.
As league leaders in Group E, the Ivory Coast still have qualification for the knockout stages in their own hands. On the third and final matchday, they play bottom of the group Algeria who only have one point and have yet to score. The match on Thursday, 20 January, kicks off at 17.00 CET. The streaming service DAZN will broadcast the match live.
Former goalkeeper René Adler (at Bayer 04 from 2000 to 2012) has joined the app sector and he wants to revolutionise the transfer market in football. The 37-year-old discusses this in the new episode of the podcast 'kicker meets DAZN'. In addition, Adler talks about non-independent players and his own eventful career that included 138 Bundesliga matches in a Werkself shirt. The episode is available from today on all usual podcast platforms.
Klaus Täuber, one of the UEFA Cup winners of 1988, today celebrates his 64th birthday. The former centre forward joined Leverkusen from Schalke 04 the summer before and he went on to make 31 Bundesliga appearances for the Black and Reds (eight goals, one assist). Many happy returns.
Maximilian Wagener is 27 years old today. The central midfielder join the Werkself junior section at the age of eight and he made it into the senior squad at Bayer 04 eleven years later in the summer of 2014. After various loan deals, Wagener signed permanently for SG Wattenscheid 09 in 2016 and today he plays in the Lower Rhine Oberliga with VfB Hilden. All the best.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen will have to manage without centre-back Edmond Tapsoba in the coming weeks. The Burkina Faso international returned to the Werkself from the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco with a muscle injury.
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The Werkself are away to Hamburg SV at the end of the Hinrunde in the 2025/26 Bundesliga campaign. The match at the newly promoted club is on Tuesday night, 13 January (kick-off: 20:30 CET). Ahead of the first encounter with HSV since 2018, Kasper Hjulmand spoke about the strengths of the opponents, lessons learnt from the home defeat against VfB Stuttgart and provided a squad update.
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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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