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.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen have loaned U19 midfielder Jeremiah Mensah to Dutch second-tier side Roda JC Kerkrade for one year. The 18-year-old Germany youth international has a long-term contract at the club to 2031.
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Bayer 04 kick off the final phase of their 2026/27 pre-season preparations with a friendly against Premier League club Nottingham Forest. Head coach Carles Martínez’s team will take to the pitch at the City Ground today, Wednesday 12 August (kick-off: 8.45 pm/7.45 pm local time). Werkself-TV will broadcast the match live and in full exclusively for Bayer 04 members via livestream from 8.35 pm...
Villa Fiorito, River Plate, Ligue 1, the World Cup final and now Bayer 04: Facundo Medina’s life story so far has been shaped by special places, clubs, matches and names. One of them is Diego Maradona, who, like Medina, hailed from the south of Buenos Aires. Another is Exequiel Palacios, his former team-mate at River Plate, who was raving about Bayer 04 to him as recently as the World Cup in North America. Medina has now taken the plunge into the Bundesliga and, as an Argentine World Cup runner-up, has joined Bayer 04 from Olympique de Marseille this week. It is set to be the next successful chapter in his career. Leverkusen’s new number 2 brings with him a South American mentality and passion, a wealth of experience from many years in Ligue 1, and a fascinating story to the Rhineland – and to a club where the 1.84-metre-tall left-footed player will be reunited with Palacios and several other familiar faces.
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Shortly after signing his contract with Bayer 04, new signing Facundo Medina spoke to Werkself.tv about his first impressions of the club, his expectations and his conversations with his Argentine compatriot Exequiel Palacios. The defender also reveals what the fans can look forward to. Welcome to Leverkusen, Facu!
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Welcome back! On Tuesday morning, 11 August, Jarell Quansah and Exequiel Palacios – the last of the Werkself’s World Cup participants – returned to training. The two medallists and their team-mates are set to play their final two pre-season friendlies in England this week before the start of competitive fixtures.
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