“The match on Saturday night may very well (…) go down as one of the best in this Bundesliga season,” declares the WELT am Sonntag. “Both teams endeavoured to seek salvation in attack.”
The Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger holds a similar view. “This wild 4-3 – Bayer took the lead, went behind and finally came out on top – was one of the most entertaining games in the current Bundesliga campaign,” the paper reports. “A gripping drama, great moves, outstanding goals.” The Werkself have thereby laid down “a marker in the battle for the top spots. Furthermore: “That should provide a boost for the forthcoming challenges in the Bundesliga, Europa League and the DFB Cup. Particularly as Leverkusen have rediscovered efficiency after weeks of squandering chances,” was part of the match report. “A win that, in retrospect, could be a real turning point in the season.”
And BILD talks about a “crazy game in Leverkusen” and provides an interesting statistic on double goalscorer Kevin Volland: “The striker has been involved in the opening goal nine times (4 goals, 5 assists) – top performer in the league!”
The EXPRESS refers to the double strike at the end of the game – and clearly cut out the time between the two Werkself goals scored by Leon Bailey and Lars Bender: “Bayer comeback in 80 wild seconds” was the headline of the match report. The newspaper agrees with the songs of praise about the match: “The spectators at Leverkusen were treated to a crazy spectacle! The cracker against BVB – it lived up to its promise.”
Why is analysed at RP Online: “Both the match and the atmosphere for the capacity 30,210 crowd at the BayArena were worthy of being called the top game,” it reports. “Both teams provided an intense encounter on the pitch – with the expectedly large number of attacking moves.”
The online edition of kicker describes the win as a “rousing home win” for the Werkself, “that could not have come at a more important point in time. As these three points put the Rhinelanders back in close touch with the Champions League positions.” Overall, it was a “great night of football.” Werkself supporters would find it hard to deny that.
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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After a break of almost two weeks, the Bayer 04 Women begin preparing for games in 2026 on Sunday. Bayer04.de provides an overview of the dates at the start of the second half of the season.
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Four Bayer 04 players are in action at the 35th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations being played in Morocco from 21 December to 18 January 2026: Eliesse Ben Seghir for the hosts, Edmond Tapsoba with Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Maza for Algeria and Christian Kofane with Cameroon. Updates on the AFCON matches involving Werkself players...
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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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