FIFA referee Felix Zwayer has been in charge of 23 Bayer 04 games since 2009. On Tuesday night, 19 January, the Berliner will start match number 24 at 20.30 CET when the Werkself take on Borussia Dortmund. The team under Peter Bosz would like to clock up a second home win in succession against Borussia following the spectacular 4-3 win in February 2020.
In the previous matches refereed by the 39-year-old, the Werkself have secured 12 wins (5 draws, 6 defeats). Zwayer has shown the Black and Reds 41 yellow cards and one red against former Leverkusen player Kyriakos Papadopoulos.
On Monday, Bosz was not the only one to talk about the clash with BVB (SEE the report here). His opposite number Edin Terzic also faced questions from journalists in Dortmund. The 38-year-old, who took over the helm from Lucien Favre in the middle of December, shared his views on the Werkself: “They didn’t have an easy start and lost both of their top goalscorers before the start of the season but they are having a very good first half of the campaign. It will be a tough challenge but we’re looking forward to it.”
Terzic will have to manage without Dan-Axel Zagadou at Leverkusen. The central defender suffered a torn thigh muscle, explained the head coach. And the holding midfielder Axel Witsel (torn Achilles) and Emre Can are also sidelined. The former Leverkusen player is serving a one-match ban. Also ruled out through injury are Marcel Schmelzer and Thorgan Hazard. HERE is the lowdown on our next opponents.
The German Football League (DFL) will continue their support for young youth athletes in the coming year. As announced by the league association this week, the partnership with Deutsche Sporthilfe has been extended to 2025 at least. A total of 850 talented youngsters from over 50 different sports have already received support under the auspices of elite youth development.
Reinforcement for the Bayer 04 U17s : The South Korean Ingyom Jung joins the Werkself with immediate effect from the youth section at Fortuna Düsseldorf. The winger played for Düsseldorf in all the games in the disrupted season in the U17 Bundesliga West. Jung will join his new teammates on Tuesday following the obligatory coronavirus test.
The long-serving Bayer 04 official Jonas Boldt is 39 on Tuesday. Born in Nuremberg, he started working at Leverkusen as a scout in January 2007. Boldt went on to be an assistant to the management board, head of the scouting department, general manager and finally sporting director. In the summer of 2019 he joined second division Hamburg SV. Boldt has since been working in Hamburg as sporting managing director. HSV beat VfL Osnabrück 5-0 on Monday night in a second division game and continue on course for promotion as league leaders. That helps make the big day easier to enjoy. Happy birthday, Jonas!
Also a year older on Tuesday is the former Werkself player Jürgen Gelsdorf. Signed from Arminia Bielefeld in 1976, the central defender spent the next ten years at Leverkusen until he retired as a player. Gelsdorf was a member of the team that won promotion in 1979.
After hanging up his boots, Duisburg-born Gelsdorf stayed at Bayer 04 as a coach, initially in charge of the youth team, later he was assistant to Rinus Michels and finally head coach of the Werkself (1989 to 1991). After being at other clubs, Gelsdorf returned in 2007 as head of the football department at TSV Bayer 04. He also looks after the needs of the Veterans team. He celebrates his 68th birthday on Tuesday. Many happy returns, Jürgen.
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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