At the end of the first week of training, the Werkself – as in the previous pre-season – are away to Regional League side Wuppertaler SV. The match at the Stadion am Zoo on Saturday 6 July kicks off at 17.00 CET. Tickets are available from the Wuppertaler SV ticket shop.
On Saturday 13 July and on Sunday 28 July there are two double matchdays at the Kurtekotten Academy. On 13 July, it starts with the match against Fortuna Sittard followed by the game against KAS Eupen. Tickets for these two friendlies go on sale on Tuesday 2 July. The 1,200 tickets at a cost of three euros each will be sold exclusively by the Bayer 04 Shop in Wiesdorf and the Fan House on Breidenbachstraße 46. The proceeds from the ticket sales will be donated to the Leverkusen Fan Project.
The ticket price and sales procedure for the second double matchday at Kurtekotten on 28 July will be the same. The start of ticket sales will be announced at a later date. The opponents for the friendlies at Kurtekotten are Heracles Almelo (Kick-off: 15.00 CET) and Vitesse Arnhem (Kick-off: 17.00 CET) on the Sunday.
Six friendlies have already been arranged for the pre-season including the game against FC Valencia as part of the season launch on Sunday 4 August (Kick-off: 14.00 CET). Tickets will be available through the usual channels from 9 July. Only the opponents and dates for the matches during the training camp in Zell am See/Kaprun (15 – 21 July) will be announced at a later date.
Fortuna Sittard: Last season, the newcomers to the Eredivisie just avoided relegation with the 15th-place finish. Sittard were back in the Dutch top-flight in 2018 for the first time in 16 years. The top scorer last season was the American Andrija Novakovich with nine goals. The club played in the European Cup Winners Cup in 1984/85 losing out to Everton in the quarter-finals (0-3 and 0-2). That was followed in 1998 by an appearance in the Intertoto Cup where Sittard lost to Austria Salzburg in the semi-finals (2-1 and 1-3). Bayer 04 beat the visitors from Sittard last summer in a 2-0 victory in a friendly.
KAS Eupen: Eupen finished twelfth in Belgium's Jupiler League last season. One player in the team last season is already well-known in Leverkusen: Julian Schauerte, brought through the youth ranks at Bayer 04, played for KAS last season but has now joined third division Preußen Münster in the summer. The 31-year-old played for Fortuna Düsseldorf and SV Sandhausen before that. Eupen have a large number of African players in their squad after the Aspire Zone Foundation from Qatar started investing in the club in 2012. Bayer 04 lost 2-1 to Eupen in a friendly at the Haberland Stadium in 2013.
Heracles Almelo: Almelo finished seventh in the Eredivisie last season. The top striker for the team was the Spanish forward Adrian Dalmau with 19 goals. The team is managed by Frank Wormuth who previously worked for the DFB as coach of the Germany U20s and director of coach training. Bayer 04 coach Peter Bosz was twice manager at Heracles, from 2004 to 2006 and then from 2010 to 2013. Almelo reached the third qualifying round of the UEFA Europa League in 2016 but went out after two draws against FC Arouca (1-1 and 0-0).
Vitesse Arnhem: Peter Bosz also coached Vitesse from 2013 to January 2016 before moving on to Maccabi Tel Aviv in Israel. Arnhem finished fifth in the Eredivisie last season and lost out on qualification for the Europa League with a 2-0 defeat against Utrecht in the play-offs. The top scorer last season was Brian Linsson with 12 goals and the Norwegian Martin Ödegaard, on loan from Real Madrid, scored eight. In 2017 Vitesse beat AZ Alkmaar 2-0 in the Dutch cup competition. The coach of the current Arnhem team is Leonid Sluzki who coached Russia at the 2016 European Championships. In 2013, Bayer 04 beat Vitesse 4-0 in a pre-season friendly.
Kicking off the new season with a fresh look: Bayer 04, in collaboration with sportswear manufacturer New Balance, has unveiled the official kit for Leverkusen’s e-Sports players for the coming season. The jersey is now available from the Bayer 04 online shop and the Fanwelt.
Show more
Paulo Sergio and Bayer 04 have enjoyed close ties since the Werkself training camp in his native Brazil last summer. The club legend is in charge of the Bayer 04 Soccer Academy, which opened in the summer of 2025, and he has also been at this year’s training camp in the Weimarer Land. As well as interacting with the many fans who travelled to the camp, the 1994 World Cup winner used the time to plan the next steps for the Academy together with club officials. In an interview with bayer04.de, Sergio spoke about the project’s future development, the upcoming visit by young Academy players to Leverkusen, and plans for the coming months in Germany and Brazil.
Show more
A round-up of the Werkself training camp in the Weimarer Land, all in one place: in our daily blog you’ll find all the insights and updates from the day. Day five (Thursday 6 August) is as follows: The squad have the final open session of the training camp in the morning. After lunch, there will be a team event.
Show more
A round-up of the Werkself training camp in the Weimarer Land, all in one place: in our daily blog you’ll find all the insights and updates from the day. Day four (Wednesday 5 August) is all about training. The day begins with a gruelling open training session – new signing Miguel Gutiérrez also takes part. A second session follows in the afternoon, this time behind closed doors.
Show more
From Real Madrid to Girona and Napoli, and now to Leverkusen: Left-back Miguel Gutiérrez has signed a contract with Bayer 04 to 2031. In his first interview, the 25-year-old Spaniard talks about his welcome at the training camp and his first encounters with his team-mates, his time at the academy alongside Lucas Vázquez at Real Madrid, and his goals with Bayer 04. He also reveals in an interview with Werkself-TV what sort of player he is and how he intends to help the team...
Show more
