Central defender Jonathan Tah was forthright at the pre-match press conference. The 25-year-old: “There’s no more ifs and maybes – we have to win and go through. That’s our clear target.”
To get there requires the team to be “focussed and aggressive” from the start. There should not be other initial phase as in the first leg: The Werkself were 2-0 down after 19 minutes and at half-time it was 3-0 to the hosts.
While Tah will again be in the line-up for the second game against Young Boys, Sven Bender is not in the squad. The experienced defender made his comeback on Sunday in the 1-1 draw at Augsburg after three months out due to injury and is set be gradually reintroduced with a busy period of fixtures coming up. Nadiem Amiri, who missed the game against FCA due to an infection, is fit again and could be an option against Young Boys. With the winger Karim Bellarabi (muscle injury), Bosz took a similar position, “we’ll see if he’s ready for the squad.”
Ahead of the knockout match at the BayArena, the Werkself head coach talked about the significance of the game against the Swiss club for Bayer 04. The 57-year-old: “The game is very important to us, we definitely want to go through to the next round. Our task is clear: to win.”
Match information:
Broadcasters: DAZN, RTL Nitro and Werks11 Radio
Referee: Davide Massa (Italy)
Strengthening the Bayer 04 Leverkusen youth teams: Konstantinos Kotsifakis will join the Werkself from Bundesliga 2 club Hertha Berlin for the 2026/27 season, where he will be a permanent member of the Leverkusen U19 coaching set-up. The German-Greek will also take on an operational role in coaching the Bayer 04 Future Team. The 29-year-old was most recently head coach of the U17s at Hertha Berlin.
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Another award for the Bayer 04 head groundsman and staff: After coming top in the 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2024/25 seasons, the BayArena pitch came second in the Bundesliga Pitch of the Year ranking for the 2025/26 season. VfL Wolfsburg secured the top spot this year, with TSG Hoffenheim in third place.
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Opening opponents, derby weekends, the opponents in the season finale: This information and more will be available to Bayer 04 fans on Thursday, 2 July, when the 2026/27 Bundesliga fixture list is published.
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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 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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