Werkself head coach Xabi Alonso will welcome his players back to the pitch from tomorrow. The first session starts at 11.00 CET on training pitches 1 and 2 at the BayArena. The team have five training sessions this week. There are two on Wednesday at 10.30 CET on the pitch and another inside the BayArena at 14.30 CET.
On all the other days, training will start as usual at 11.00 CET. All sessions are open to fans.
Madi Monamay will immediately join all the Werkself training sessions. The U19 player will train with the team under head coach Xabi Alonso for the time being. The 16-year-old defender from Belgium will continue with pre-match training and matches with the Leverkusen U19s.
Several Werkself players are already hard at work: The recently injured goalkeeper Andrey Lunev, Joshua Eze, Ayman Azhil plus today's birthday boy Timothy Fosu-Mensah are at the Werkstatt rehab and training centre at Bayer 04 on the third floor at the BayArena. Patrik Schick has already been working hard on his comeback every day in between the festive holidays. He will also be there tomorrow along with the other players.
The Werkself are set to play the first friendly of the year on Saturday 7 January. Venezia from Italy, including former Leverkusen player Joel Pohjanpalo, are the visitors to the Ulrich Haberland Stadium. The kick-off is at 15.00 CET.
The last of four winter friendlies will be played a week later: Leverkusen entertain Danish champions FC Copenhagen at the BayArena on Sunday 15 January (kick-off: 13.00 CET).
Tickets are available for both matches. Click HERE to access the ticket shop.
The Bayer 04 Women also return on Tuesday. Head coach Robert de Pauw will lead the first session of 2023 with his players at the Kurtekotten Performance Centre.
The Leverkusen women's team also have their first friendly on Saturday 7 January. The top-flight Dutch side Fortuna Sittard are the visitors at the Kurtekotten Performance Centre. The kick-off is at 14.00 CET and entrance is free of charge.
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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