That’s a great opportunity for all Bayer 04 fans: The attractive friendly against the four-time European cup winners from Porto, with 31 domestic league titles and 16 cup triumphs to their credit, will be broadcast live at bayer04.de and is also live on Facebook – as was recently the case when the Werkself clocked up a 4-0 win against Koblenz.
Head coach Roger Schmidt and his team will face a tougher challenge this time round. “We know Porto are a top team playing at the highest level. It will be interesting to see who’s further on in the pre-season,” said Kevin Kampl. And his midfield team-mate and Copa America winner Charles Aránguiz, who returned to training this week, added: “Friendlies against top teams like Porto are always helpful.” Bayer 04 fans will be able to see for themselves from 18.00 CET by watching the live stream at bayer04.de and on Facebook.
Bender and Brandt off to Frankfurt on Thursday
For the captain Lars Bender and Julian Brandt it will the last appearance in a Werkself shirt for the next few weeks: Thursday marks the start of the Olympic adventure in Rio for the two players. The Germany squad under coach Horst Hrubesch come together for three days in Frankfurt and fly out from there on Saturday to Brazil.
In the previous game against RB Leipzig in December last year, the Werkself turned came from behind to win 3-1 and further improved Leverkusen's already strong record against the Red Bulls. Montrell Culbreath stood out with his first goal on his debut for the Black and Reds. While the 18-year-old would certainly like to score a second goal against Leipzig on Saturday night, the attack-minded visitors come to the BayArena in confident mood after five Bundesliga victories in a row. The Nordkurve12 supporters group knows the Werkself will therefore once again be reliant on the vociferous support of the fans, and has once again called for the ‘Finally Red’ campaign in the run-in. Today’s matchday news.
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Video games manufacturer Electronic Arts (EA), together with the German Football League (DFL), announced the top male and female selections for the 2025/26 Bundesliga season this week. Bayer 04 striker Vanessa Fudalla is in the starting eleven of the women's "Team of the Season". Alejandro Grimaldo and Aleix Garcia have been selected as bench players in the men's team.
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This special event showed once again how strong Bayer 04 are as a team: As part of ‘BarmeniaGothaer gives joy’, the Werkself players Edmond Tapsoba, Ibrahim Maza and Christian Kofane supported the sale of individually designed T-shirts for a good cause at the Fanwelt on Thursday. Several hundred fans came to take part in the charity campaign. Leverkusen's main sponsor BarmeniaGothaer donated the proceeds to the Fondation Edmond Tapsoba, which helps people in Tapsoba's home country of Burkina Faso in their challenging everyday lives.
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With three games to play before the end of the season, the Bayer 04 Women can break one record and equal another at SGS Essen. After three wins on the bounce, coach Roberto Pätzold's team are aiming to maintain the chance of third place in Sunday’s away game (14:00 CEST, Stadion an der Hafenstraße).
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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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