Serie B club Venezia FC provide the first opposition for the Werkself in the New Year at the Ulrich Haberland Stadium. The kick-off against the team including former Bayer 04 player Joel Pohjanpalo is on Saturday 7 January at 15.00 CET. It will be the first meeting of the two clubs.
The second friendly in January is at the BayArena. Bayer 04 host FC Copenhagen in Leverkusen one week before the Bundesliga fixture at Borussia Mönchengladbach. The match on Sunday 15 January kicks off at 14.00 CET.
The Werkself and the top Danish club played each other in the UEFA Champions League qualifiers in 2014/15. The tie produced two wins for Bayer 04 (3-2 and 4-0) and secured progress to the group stage of Europe's premier club competition.
Match tickets for the home games against Venezia FC and FC Copenhagen go on sale on 20 December. Club members pay five euros and non-members seven euros.
Strengthening the Bayer 04 Leverkusen youth teams: Konstantinos Kotsifakis will join the Werkself from Bundesliga 2 club Hertha Berlin for the 2026/27 season, where he will be a permanent member of the Leverkusen U19 coaching set-up. The German-Greek will also take on an operational role in coaching the Bayer 04 Future Team. The 29-year-old was most recently head coach of the U17s at Hertha Berlin.
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Another award for the Bayer 04 head groundsman and staff: After coming top in the 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2024/25 seasons, the BayArena pitch came second in the Bundesliga Pitch of the Year ranking for the 2025/26 season. VfL Wolfsburg secured the top spot this year, with TSG Hoffenheim in third place.
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Opening opponents, derby weekends, the opponents in the season finale: This information and more will be available to Bayer 04 fans on Thursday, 2 July, when the 2026/27 Bundesliga fixture list is published.
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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 personal 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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