Julian Brandt, Kai Havertz, Jonathan Tah (all with Germany), Charles Aránguiz (Chile), Aleksandar Dragovic (Austria), Lukas Hradecky (Finland), Tin Jedvaj (Croatia), Isaac Kiese Thelin (Sweden), Paulinho (Brazil U20s) plus Jakub Bednarczyk (Poland U20s) are away with their national teams: The international fixtures will be played from Thursday to Sunday (6 to 11 September) and the majority of the Bayer 04 pros will return to Leverkusen at the start of next week; only Charles Aránguiz and Tin Jedvaj will head back on Wednesday.
Head coach Heiko Herrlich had eight outfield players available for the training session on Monday afternoon in the shape of Lucas Alario, Leon Bailey, Karim Bellarabi, Sven Bender, Dominik Kohr, Sam Schreck, Kevin Volland and Mitchell Weiser – Rambo Özcan and Tomasz Kucz worked with goalkeeping coach Daniel Thiel on the training ground. Julian Baumgartlinger (knee), Panos Retsos (thigh), Joel Pohjanpalo (ankle),Wendell (knee) and Lars Bender were absent for the first session of the week; the captain did complete an individual session in the gym at the BayArena.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen will have to manage without centre-back Edmond Tapsoba in the coming weeks. The Burkina Faso international returned to the Werkself from the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco with a muscle injury.
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The Werkself are away to Hamburg SV at the end of the Hinrunde in the 2025/26 Bundesliga campaign. The match at the newly promoted club is on Tuesday night, 13 January (kick-off: 20:30 CET). Ahead of the first encounter with HSV since 2018, Kasper Hjulmand spoke about the strengths of the opponents, lessons learnt from the home defeat against VfB Stuttgart and provided a squad update.
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In Germany, the temperatures are currently around zero, leaving even professional footballers freezing - but not the Bayer 04 Women. Roberto Pätzold's team have fled the cold to the south and are preparing for the second half of the season at a training camp in the Algarve, almost 2,000 kilometres away from home as the crow flies. The Leverkusen squad landed in Faro on Saturday morning and have already completed the first three training sessions over the weekend.
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It was a disappointing Saturday night. The Werkself lost 4-1 to VfB Stuttgart to start the new year on Bundesliga matchday 16 in 2025/26, a result that left both players and fans disappointed. "We played without any passion," said Alejandro Grimaldo honestly afterwards. Teammate Jarell Quansah was even more self-critical, emphasising: "We were miles off it in the first half. You can't put in a performance like that, especially in front of our own fans and I can only apologise to them, to be honest." Read on for the reaction, facts and stats from the clash with VfB Stuttgart in the Werkself review.
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