Only Julian Baumgartlinger (cruciate injury) and Mitchel Bakker (ankle injury) did not take part in the final pre-match training session at the Ulrich Haberland Stadium on Friday morning. Timothy Fosu-Mensah will probably miss the Fürth game following his torn cruciate, but according to Gerardo Seoane, he is "not far from being back at 100%."
Seoane also addressed the forthcoming opponents in the "pleasant" week for the Werkself head coach. The Cloverleaves are currently bottom of the Bundesliga with only one point from 13 games. "On the one hand, there is the situation in the table but also performances on the other," declared Seoane. "Fürth deserved to get a result in many of those games. They press, are brave and don't sit back."
The newly promoted club from Franconia have committed the most fouls of any Bundesliga side this season also due to their approach to the game. "It's logical that tactical fouls or similar are necessary with high pressing. But that expedient is understandable. We have prepared for their style of play accordingly and we want to move the ball even quicker and look to switch play from one side to the other," explained Seoane.
Thanks to last weekend's deserved 3-1 away win at RB Leipzig and SC Freiburg's defeat at Bochum (1-2), the Werkself have moved up to third place in the Bundesliga. In the home game against Fürth, Bayer 04 will be looking to continue the successful run of four wins and one draw in the last five games. Seoane: "The players understand how we have achieved those positive results. We want to use every game, including the one against Fürth, to back up our performances and to continue to develop."
After being nominated for the Bundesliga Goal of the Year 2025, Martin Terrier's wonderful strike for the opener against FC Köln is now also up for selection for the ARD Sportschau Goal of the Month award for December 2025. Bayer 04 fans have until 19:00 CET on 10 January to vote for the French forward.
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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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"In every ending lies a new beginning" is a well-known saying. This phrase has probably never been more apt at Bayer 04. After winning the Bundesliga in 2023/24 and finishing as runners-up in 2024/25, the summer was the most eventful ever in terms of transfers. Over ten players and the coach, including the coaching staff, left the club. A lot of the heroes of the double-winning side began a new chapter. It was the end of an era. And at the same time the beginning of a new, very exciting and promising chapter for Leverkusen. The Werkself welcomed more than a dozen new arrivals, including experienced title-winners and young talents, to build a new "foundation for a successful team capable of winning titles" under the Bayer Cross, as managing director sport Simon Rolfes put it. A new spirit, a new hunger, a new story was to be created. Bayer04.de looks back at the first few months of this story and the final act of the preseason.
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43 points at the end of the last Bundesliga season were not only more than ever before for the Bayer 04 Women, but also led to a record fourth-place finish. That was followed by a Hinrunde with many more victories, but also some setbacks. In an interview with bayer04.de, sporting director Achim Feifel takes stock at the end of the year.
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With their wonderful goals, Martin Terrier and Florian Wirtz are up for the Bundesliga Goal of the Year 2025. Voting for fans will run exclusively via the official Bundesliga app until Sunday, 4 January.
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