"Charly brought the muscular problems back from his holiday. He's an important player for us so the injury obviously hurts us," said Peter Bosz who explained that Aránguiz had to break off a training run back home. As the Chilean had further problems with his calf in yesterday's warm-up, an MRI scan was organised for the evening. The 30-year-old flew back to Germany on Tuesday morning for further investigations. A final diagnosis remains to be made. Despite that, Bosz made it clear: "He will stay in Leverkusen and can start rehab there straight away."
Kerem Demirbay's injury is less severe. The 26-year-old twisted his ankle in training yesterday but examinations did not reveal any serious injury. "His ankle was taped this morning and we hoped he could join in. But I saw straight away that he was limping a bit. Therefore we didn't want to take any risks with today's football fitness training as that's when the risk is highest," said the head coach. Demirbay returned to the team hotel early but should be back in training in the short term.
There was also positive news from La Manga, for example with today's training session. Speaking about the fitness session that is usually the toughest of the week, Bosz said: "I was very happy with the session today. I'm very satisfied!" After the warm-up, the coach had his players practising intense attacking football in 11 against 11 with four 13 minute games. After two rounds the number of players was reduced to ten against ten and it finished with one less player on each side.
At the end of the session, Bayer 04 youngster Emrehan Gedikli from the U17s made an appearance. The 16-year-old is currently staying at the same hotel with the Germany U 17 team for a course and, without further ado, he swapped the Germany shirt for a Black and Red one. That all happened under the eyes of the Germany U21 coach Stefan Kuntz who was on the touchline to watch proceedings on the pitch.
After the very intensive session, the Werkself rested on Monday afternoon to gather strength for tomorrow – as once again there are two sessions planned for the day. The morning training will be held behind closed doors. The session in the afternoon is open. All fans at home will be able to see the Werkself on Friday 10 January. Both games on the double matchday against FC Utrecht (15.00 CET) and FC St Gallen (16.00 CET) will be broadcast live on bayer04.de, Facebook and YouTube. It's worth taking a note of those times now.
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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