The Black and Reds – with the exception of the international players – have time until Sunday to enjoy the summer break at their leisure before head coach Peter Bosz welcomes his charges back on Monday at 14.30 CET (open training session). A trio can hardly wait to get going again. "I'm really looking forward to Monday. I think everybody can imagine how it feels to start the new season fully fit after 13 months out injured," said Joel Pohjanpalo, who like Karim Bellarabi, has been putting in special shifts since the start of the week in Leverkusen. "I want to get ahead for the new season especially after this long injury lay-off. And I'd like to be sure that I'm in best shape and fully fit when we start with the full training sessions," said the 24-year-old striker who suffered severe problems in his right ankle shortly after the start of the last pre-season. "Since the start of June, I’ve been certain that everything is fine with my foot – I don't have any problems at all now," added Pohjanpalo.
While the Finn, together with keeper Niklas Lomb, took part in passing drills and finishing, Bellarabi worked with the ball in a one-on-one session with rehab coach Hans-Jörg Schneider and he visibly enjoyed it. The 28-year-old suffered a muscle and tendon injury at the end of March in the game against Hoffenheim that finished his season. Goalkeeper Niklas Lomb rejoins the goalkeeping team for the new campaign after a 12-month loan period at second division SC Sandhausen.
It couldn't have been any tighter! Despite winning four of six games in the online preliminary round in Showdown 1 of the VBL Club Championship 2026/27, Leverkusen eSports duo Marc and Sean Landwehr didn't make it through to the offline knockout round. Level on points (12) with seven other teams, Leverkusen were the only team with this points tally not to progress as they had the worst single-game record compared to their rivals.
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Bayer 04 are away to Croatian champions Dinamo Zagreb on Matchday 5 of the league phase of the 2026/27 UEFA Europa League. The game kicks off on Thursday 26 November at 18:45 CET at the Maksimir Stadium. All the information on ticket sales.
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It wasn’t just on the pitch that there was cause for celebration around the Werkself’s 2–1 home win against SC Freiburg. Plenty of happy faces could be seen near the dugouts at half-time too. Once again, CEO Fernando Carro, alongside former striker and club ambassador Stefan Kießling, paid tribute to eight supporters’ clubs celebrating up to their 30th anniversary on behalf of Bayer 04.
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A disciplined and impressive team performance secured a 2–1 victory for the Werkself against league leaders SC Freiburg, who had remained unbeaten across all competitions until then; two players once again stood out at the BayArena: Artisic dribbler Ibrahim Maza scored Leverkusen’s first goal himself and set up the second, whilst goal-getter Patrik Schick had set up the equaliser and netted the winner. In doing so, the Czechia international set a remarkable club record. Both head coach Carles Martínez and the media were full of praise afterwards. Maza himself was also delighted with the growing rapport with “super striker” Schick: “The more we play together, the better we understand each other.” The Werkself’s comeback secured their fourth home win in their fourth home game of the season.
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