
Leverkusen made two changes from last Friday’s goalless draw against VfB Stuttgart. Lukas Hradecky was first called into action after 15 minutes to save against Curtis Jones, before Virgil van Dijk’s intervention prevented Jeremie Frimpong from getting a shot away. Not much happened in front of goal after that until Frimpong fired home just before half-time, but it was called back for handball in the build-up. After the restart, Liverpool upped the tempo and hit two quickfire goals through Luis Diaz and Cody Gakpo. The hosts dominated from that point, with Diaz scoring two more late on to round off his hat-trick. Read more about the game in our report HERE.






Granit Xhaka said afterwards: “It was a really good first half from us. We had a lot of possession and a lot of what we’d planned was working. But we knew that Liverpool can’t be controlled and dominated for 90 minutes. In the end, we conceded the goals too easily. We can’t do that. The first goal was world class. The others frustrate me. We’re at this level to measure ourselves against the best. Liverpool are among those teams. We’ll take a lot of things with us – good and bad. And if we keep doing our thing, we’ll start winning games again.”
Captain Hradecky added: “We’re also asking ourselves what we lacked in the second half. We didn’t show resistance in the final 30 minutes. The goals came quickly after each other. On the whole, the result is disappointing, especially for our fans. They didn’t deserve that.”
The Rheinische Post ran with the headline “Liverpool overrun Leverkusen”, adding “Bayer produced just one half on an equal footing with the English side. The Reds then dominated in the 4-0 win”. The Süddeutsche Zeitung had a similar view: “After a half on an equal footing with the Premier League leaders, the champions of Germany then felt the full might of Anfield in the second half.” Bild focused on Xabi Alonso’s return to Anfield: “He was celebrated with an ovation and chants by the Liverpool fans. They were goosebump moments.”
There was no doubt that Alonso was the focus for much of the media and crowd in attendance as the Werkself boss made his first return to Anfield as a coach. Fans from both Leverkusen and Liverpool applauded and chanted his name both before and after the final whistle, having helped the Reds win the Champions League as a player on Merseyside.

Alonso said after the game: “To win against top, top teams, you need to go through tough moments and suffer. We need to learn from this and also learn to enjoy moments like this to then pounce. All in all, we’re in a good position with seven points and the games to come. We’re not happy today, but tomorrow we’ll think about the next game. And we’ve got time to analyse the good and bad sides of the game.”
Bayer 04 have now won only one of 12 away games in England in UEFA competition (D3, L8), including defeat on all three visits to Anfield.
In terms of match stats, Liverpool led on shots (22-12), while the passing stats were pretty even. Alonso’s side dominated in terms of possession (53%) and duels won (595).
The last of seven fixtures in the space of 22 games takes Leverkusen to Bochum in the Bundesliga on Saturday (3.30pm CET). There’s then the final international break of the year before another busy run through to Christmas.


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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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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