The greeting was in Hebrew, the question in English: The Israeli journalists gave Peter Bosz a very warm welcome to his former home in a digital press conference. The Dutchman is well known to the local press from his six months as the coach at Maccabi Tel Aviv in 2016.
“I’m very happy to be here again. It was a great time even though it was so short’” said Bosz. The 56-year-old was the Maccabi coach for two games against Be’er Sheva – both ended in draws (1-1, 0-0). “There’s not many of the players left from back then,” said Bosz.
With Nadiem Amiri, the interest from the journalists from Germany and Israel primarily focused on the high intensity workload for the Werkself players with a run of double-fixture weeks. We’ve delivered after the international break and won everything with the exception of the slip-up in Prague,” said the 24-year-old. During that period there have been four wins and the narrow 1-0 defeat against Slavia Prague. “And that defeat did not not dent our confidence.” Above all else, after last weekend’s 4-2 win against Freiburg, where Amiri scored an impressive goal to make it 3-2, the Werkself “came here with a good feeling. And we want to take all three points.”
Bosz explained the need for rotation during a run of fixtures within a short space of time but did not specify how many or which players this might involve. “The fact is: The best eleven players will be on the pitch to win this game.”

The Bayer 04 women’s team secured a win in the friendly during the international break. Without a total of eight international players, coach Roberto Pätzold’s team defeated Bundesliga 2 side Borussia Mönchengladbach 3–1 at the Kurtekotten Training Centre, thanks to goals from Lobke Loonen (1’, penalty), Caroline Kehrer (41') and Valentina Mädl (66').
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Bayer 04 will have to manage without striker Christian Kofane in the coming weeks. The 20-year-old sustained a muscle injury to his left thigh on international duty with the Cameroon national team during the recent international break. This will prevent him from playing in the upcoming Werkself matches.
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FSV Mainz 05 went into the international break on the back of an away win at Borussia Mönchengladbach. Currently sixth in the table, the Rheinhessen side – who have been impressive on the road – now aim to continue their good start to the Bundesliga campaign at home when they face the Werkself on Saturday, 10 October (kick-off: 15:30 CEST). In terms of squad selection, Urs Fischer once again has more options at his disposal. Up front, the Mainz coach is likely to continue relying on what is currently the league’s most successful strike partnership. The lowdown on our next opponents.
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Exciting experiences and exclusive insights into the Werkself and the BayArena awaited the young footballers from the BA04 Football Academy Guangzhou in China during their visit to the Rhineland this week. As well as taking part in a joint training session with the Bayer 04 Football Academy, the youngsters marvelled at the Bundesliga club’s stadium during a guided tour. The highlight of the visit was a private press conference with former Bayer 04 striker Stefan Kießling, during which he shared tips from his own career with the young players. On Saturday afternoon, 10 October, the group will round off their visit by supporting the Werkself in the away match in Mainz.
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Fans ask, Carolin Simon answers: As part of Bayer 04’s second Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on Reddit, the Leverkusen captain took questions from the community. The full-back, who returned to the club this summer after ten years away, set aside an hour and a half for the Q&A session with fans, offering a very personal insight into, amongst other things, her daily life as a footballer and her role as captain, as well as her passion for Pokémon.
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