This week started with a rearranged fixture in the Virtual Bundesliga (VBL) from matchday 11 against the FC Köln eSports players. The opening match on PlayStation 5 saw Marc ‘MARC_LDW23’ Landwehr draw 0-0 with Denis ‘DENIS’ Müller. The one-vs-one on Xbox Series S/X ended in a 5-1 defeat for Fabian ‘B04_DUBZJE’ de Cae against Köln’s Tim ‘THESTRXNGER’ Katnawatos.
The overall result was a deserved 4-4 draw as Landwehr and Paul ‘B04_PAUL’ Degner were able to win 2-1 in the following two-vs-two encounter.
The Werkself eSports players end the first half of the Club Championship season at the usual VBL kick-off time on Tuesday night. That starts at 18.00 CET with the match against Borussia Mönchengladbach. The Foals are currently fifth in the VBL table with a three-point lead over Bayer 04 in seventh. "We've set ourselves the target of ending the first half of the season by overtaking one of our direct rivals in Gladbach," explained ‘MARC_LDW23’ in outlining the intentions for the evening.
The Black and Reds then face Holstein Kiel at 20.00 CET. The matches against the team bottom in the North West Division starts the second half of the campaign. The final matchday is set for 1 March.
The matches involving the #B04eSports players will be broadcast as usual on the club Twitch channel. HERE is the link to the channel.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen will have to manage without centre-back Edmond Tapsoba in the coming weeks. The Burkina Faso international returned to the Werkself from the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco with a muscle injury.
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The Werkself are away to Hamburg SV at the end of the Hinrunde in the 2025/26 Bundesliga campaign. The match at the newly promoted club is on Tuesday night, 13 January (kick-off: 20:30 CET). Ahead of the first encounter with HSV since 2018, Kasper Hjulmand spoke about the strengths of the opponents, lessons learnt from the home defeat against VfB Stuttgart and provided a squad update.
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In Germany, the temperatures are currently around zero, leaving even professional footballers freezing - but not the Bayer 04 Women. Roberto Pätzold's team have fled the cold to the south and are preparing for the second half of the season at a training camp in the Algarve, almost 2,000 kilometres away from home as the crow flies. The Leverkusen squad landed in Faro on Saturday morning and have already completed the first three training sessions over the weekend.
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It was a disappointing Saturday night. The Werkself lost 4-1 to VfB Stuttgart to start the new year on Bundesliga matchday 16 in 2025/26, a result that left both players and fans disappointed. "We played without any passion," said Alejandro Grimaldo honestly afterwards. Teammate Jarell Quansah was even more self-critical, emphasising: "We were miles off it in the first half. You can't put in a performance like that, especially in front of our own fans and I can only apologise to them, to be honest." Read on for the reaction, facts and stats from the clash with VfB Stuttgart in the Werkself review.
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