On Tuesday morning, nine players completed a recovery session on mountain bikes including the Bender twins, Dominik Kohr, Kevin Volland and Lucas Alario, who celebrated his 26th birthday. At the same time, Karim Bellarabi, who has been suspended since the game against FC Bayern but will be available for the Hannover match, completed shooting practice with assistant coach Niko Schneck.
Julian Baumgartlinger and Panagiotis Retsos worked on their comeback on neighbouring pitches. While the Austrian was able to report "very good progress" in his recovery from a torn collateral ligament in his left knee and talked about returning to full training in the coming weeks, Retsos is already a step further on. The Greek, who suffered a torn ligament in his right thigh at the summer training camp in Zell am See, worked on a range of running and passing drills with assistant coach Xaver Zembrod and he could soon be in a position to train with his team-mates again. Charles Aránguiz was also at the BayArena on Tuesday. The Chilean's continuing knee problems mean he was only able to follow a special rehab session at the Werkstatt.
Up to Friday, there are three more sessions for the ten-man training group consisting of Lucas Alario, Sven Bender, Karim Bellarabi, Dominik Kohr, Kevin Volland, Mitchell Weiser and Wendell – plus the three goalkeepers staying behind in Leverkusen Ramazan Öczan, Thorsten Kirschbaum and Tomasz Kucz. Capitain Lars Bender and Kai Havertz, who misses the chance of making another appearance for Germany following a knee injury picked up against Freiburg, continue to work on their own.
Ten Werkself internationals are set to represent their countries from Thursday to Tuesday. In addition to the eight call-ups expected (Jakub Bednarzcyk, Julian Brandt, Aleksandar Dragovic, Lukas Hradecky, Tin Jedvaj, Isaac Kiese Thelin, Paulinho and Jonathan Tah), there are two others: Leon Bailey has decided to accept the invitation to play for the Jamaican national team. The 21-year-old is set to make his international debut against Bonaire on 15 October. Sam Schreck was called up to the Germany U20 squad on Monday by coach Mikel Schönweitz (for the friendlies against the Netherlands and Switzerland.
The Werkself host Bayern Munich at the BayArena on matchday 26 in the 2025/26 Bundesliga season. The match is on Saturday, 14 March, with the kick-off at 15:30 CET. Information on ticket sales.
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Bayer 04’s four-game winning run in all competitions came to an end with a 1-1 draw away at Borussia Mönchengladbach on Bundesliga Matchday 21. Yannik Engelhardt scored early for the hosts, but an own goal from Philipp Sander brought the Werkself back level before the break.
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Werkself-TV shows the highlights of the Bayer 04 women's 0-1 loss at Eintracht Frankfurt on the 17th matchday of the Google Pixel Frauen-Bundesliga 2025/26.
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Bayer 04 have a score to settle with Borussia Mönchengladbach after their late equaliser in the reverse fixture. But it’s been a while since the points were shared in this fixture at Borussia-Park, where the Werkself have won their last six visits – their best run ever away at a team in the Bundesliga. Victory in Saturday evening’s game (18:30 CET) would also be the team’s fifth in a row in all competitions and their best run this season, while Gladbach are only just above the bottom three after going four games without a win. Here’s all you need to know ahead of the evening’s encounter in our matchday news.
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