Germany had a less arduous task than Austria. Without Jonathan Tah and Florian Wirtz in the starting eleven, Germany produced a dominant performance and with 80 per cent possession they took an early lead. Leon Goretzka made it 1-0 on three minutes with an impressive move involving Joshua Kimmich and Serge Gnabry and a former Leverkusen player struck four minutes later. With build-up play from Leroy Sané, who was a Bayer 04 youth player from 2011 to 2013, Kai Havertz doubled the lead.
The picture changed slightly after the break: The visitors from Iceland were more defensive at the start but they did not pose a real threat to the German team in black. Ilkay Gündogan scored the third goal on 55 minutes. Jonathan Tah and Florian Wirtz did not play.
Aleksandar Dragovic was on the pitch for 90 minutes. Austria twice took the lead in Glasgow through Stuttgart’s Sasa Kalajdzic but the Scots were able to level twice. The game ended all square at 2-2.
The Leverkusen trio are back in action in World Cup qualifiers on Sunday 28 March. While Germany with Jonathan Tah and Florian Wirtz face Romania in Bucharest, Austria with Aleksandar Dragovic play the Faroe Islands in Vienna. Both games kick off at 20.45 CEST.
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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From Ouagadougou to Leverkusen – and back: in March, Bayer 04 travelled with Edmond Tapsoba for a special project in his homeland Burkina Faso. The country where his roots and heart lie. The country where he’s more than a world-class defender: a symbol of hope and a role model for an entire generation. The result is a 45-minute documentary about Tapsoba’s long journey from Africa via Portugal to Leverkusen, which offers extraordinary, one-off and emotional insights.
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Edmond Tapsoba has signed an early extension to his contract with Bayer 04 Leverkusen. With two years left on his current deal, the 27-year-old Burkina Faso international has extended his contract until 30 June 2031. The centre-back joined as a young talent from Portuguese top-flight club Vitoria Guimaraes at the start of 2020.
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