The club from central Baden was established in 2010 following the merger of VfR Pforzheim and FC Pforzheim. The club has been in the Baden-Württemberg Oberliga since promotion in 2015. The team coached by Gökhan Gökce finished thirteenth last season.
Pforzheim qualified for the DFB Cup as finalists of the Baden State Cup. CfR lost 6-5 on penalties but went through as the winners Karlsruher SC, last season's first round opponents for the Werkself, qualify for the national cup competition as a third division club.
The first round ties in the DFB Cup will played from 17-20 August with the final details of the fixtures to be confirmed.
DFB Cup Round One draw in full:
Friday, 17 August, 20.45 CET:
SV Wehen Wiesbaden (League 3) v FC St. Pauli (League 2)
FC Magdeburg (League 2) v SV Darmstadt 98 (League 2)
FC Schweinfurt 05 (Regional League Bavaria) v Schalke 04 (Bundesliga)
Saturday, 18 August, 15.30 CET:
CfR Pforzheim (Oberliga) v Bayer 04
SV Linx (Verbandsliga) v FC Nürnberg (Bundesliga)
SV Rödinghausen (Regional League West) v Dynamo Dresden (League 2)
SV Elversberg 07 (Regional League South West) v VfL Wolfsburg (Bundesliga)
TuS Dassendorf (Oberliga) v MSV Duisburg (League 2)
Wormatia Worms (Regional League South West) v Werder Bremen (Bundesliga)
SV Drochtersen/Assel (Regional League North) v Bayern Munich (Bundesliga)
FC Kaiserslautern (League 3) v TSG 1899 Hoffenheim (Bundesliga)
SSV Ulm (Regional League Bavaria) v Eintracht Frankfurt (Bundesliga)
Saturday, 18 August, 18.30 CET:
TuS Erndtebrück (Oberliga) v Hamburg SV (League 2)
Rot-Weiß Oberhausen (Regional League West) v SV Sandhausen (League 2)
Erzgebirge Aue (League 2) v FSV Mainz 05 (Bundesliga)
Saturday, 18 August, 20.45 CET:
Hansa Rostock (League 3) v VfB Stuttgart (Bundesliga)
Sunday, 19 August, 15.30 CET:
FC Lok Stendal (Oberliga) v Arminia Bielefeld (League 2)
TSV Steinbach (Regional League South West) v FC Augsburg (Bundesliga)
TuS Rot-Weiß Koblenz (Oberliga) v Fortuna Düsseldorf (Bundesliga)
Weiche Flensburg 08 (Regional League North) v VfL Bochum (League 2)
BSG Chemie Leipzig (Oberliga) v Jahn Regensburg (League 2)
BFC Dynamo (Regional League North) v FC Köln (League 2)
SSV Jeddeloh II (Regionalliga Nord) - 1. FC Heidenheim (League 2)
Viktoria Köln (Regional League West) v RB Leipzig (Bundesliga)
Karlsruher SC (League 3) v Hannover 96 (Bundesliga)
Sunday, 19 August, 18.30 CET:
TSV 1860 Munich (League 3) v Holstein Kiel (League 2)
Carl Zeiss Jena (League 3) v FC Union Berlin (League 2)
Monday, 20 August, 18.30 CET:
BSC Hastedt (Oberliga) - Borussia Mönchengladbach (Bundesliga)
SC Paderborn (League 2) - FC Ingolstadt (2. Bundesliga)
Energie Cottbus (League 3) v SC Freiburg (Bundesliga)
Eintracht Braunschweig (League 3) v Hertha BSC (Bundesliga)
Monday, 20 August, 20.45 CET:
SpVgg Greuther Fürth (League 2) v Borussia Dortmund (Bundesliga)
Key dates in 2018/2019 DFB Cup:
Round 2: 30/31 October 2018
Round of 16: 5/6 February 2019
Quarter-finals: 2/3 April 2019
Semi-finals: 23/24 April 2019
Final: 25 May 2019
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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