“We’ll definitely face a highly motivated challenger in Sonnenhof Großaspach, which we’ll take very seriously. We want to start the season with a win. Our aspiration is to once again go very far in this competition,” said Simon Rolfes, managing director sport.
A total of 64 clubs are competing in this year’s DFB Pokal. Leverkusen were in one pot with last season’s Bundesliga teams and the top 14 sides from Bundesliga 2. The other pot contained the last four second division teams, the top four from the 3. Liga and the 24 regional representatives.
Großaspach are the winners of the Württemberg Cup and have just earned promotion to the fourth tier Regionalliga. The game will be the first competitive fixture in charge of the Werkself for Erik ten Hag.
The second round is set to be played on 28/29 October; the round of 16 is on 2/3 December; the quarter-finals on 3/4 and 10/11 February 2026; the semi-finals on 21/22 April. The final in Berlin will be on 23 May.
First-round draw in full:
Dynamo Dresden vs. Mainz
Arminia Bielefeld vs. Werder Bremen
Schweinfurt vs. Fortuna Düsseldorf
Wehen Wiesbaden vs. Bayern Munich
Sonnenhof Großaspach vs. Bayer 04 Leverkusen
Saarbrücken vs. Magdeburg
Lokomotive Leipzig vs. Schalke
Bahlinger SC vs. Heidenheim
Hansa Rostock vs. Hoffenheim
Blau-Weiß Lohne vs. Greuther Fürth
Sandhausen vs. RB Leipzig
Energie Cottbus vs. Hannover
Homburg vs. Holstein Kiel
Jahn Regensburg vs. Köln
Preußen Münster vs. Hertha Berlin
Gütersloh vs. Union Berlin
Sportfreunde Lotte vs. Freiburg
BFC Dynamo vs. Bochum
Eintracht Norderstedt vs. St. Pauli
Lübeck vs. Darmstadt
Engers vs. Eintracht Frankfurt
Illertissen vs. Nürnberg
Meuselwitz vs. Karlsruhe
Eintracht Braunschweig vs. VfB Stuttgart
Rot-Weiß Essen vs. Borussia Dortmund
RSV Eintracht vs. Kaiserslautern
Viktoria Köln vs. Paderborn
Atlas Delmenhorst vs. Borussia Mönchengladbach
Hallescher FC vs. Augsburg
Pirmasens vs. Hamburg
Hemelingen vs. Wolfsburg
Ulm vs. Elversberg
Bayer 04 host Borussia Mönchengladbach at the BayArena on matchday 12 of the 2026/27 Bundesliga season. The schedule for the game remains to be confirmed. The latest information on ticket sales.
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Bayer 04 host Eintracht Frankfurt at the BayArena on matchday 14 of the 2026/27 Bundesliga season. The schedule for the game remains to be confirmed. The latest information on ticket sales.
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Werkself-TV shows the highlights of Bayer 04 Women's 0-1 loss at Bayern Munich in the round of 16 of the women's DFB-Pokal 2026/27
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“As far as mentality and determination are concerned, we have nothing to reproach ourselves for,” Robert Andrich said up after the first home defeat for the Werkself this term. In terms of their play, too, the Black and Reds put in a respectable performance for long stretches of this intense and physical match, outperforming VfB Stuttgart in most areas. It was only in terms of efficiency in front of goal that the Swabians had the edge over the Werkself. Head coach Carles Martínez wants to learn from this so that, in future, they can “win this sort of match too”. The Werkself review.
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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 working 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 personal 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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