After rousing applause to greet Kerem Demirbay, his call for "Ask me whatever you want" drew an immediate response. Nearly every young football player in the room raised their arms. The midfielder provided detailed answers to the questions from the children for over half an hour.
The youngsters discovered that Demirbay’s relationship with head coach Xabi Alonso is "very good" and that he gets on best with Nadiem Amiri, Karim Bellarabi and Jonathan Tah in the Werkself squad. The 29-year-old was also asked about his goal celebration and Demirbay explained his personal ritual step-by-step.
The father of two clearly enjoyed answering the children's questions and afterwards he made himself available for an autograph session. The signature of the Bayer 04 player now adorns shirts, autograph cards, drinks bottles and socks belonging to the young football players. The perfect way to finish was a group photo with all the participants.
Four Bayer 04 players are in action at the 35th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations being played in Morocco from 21 December to 18 January 2026: Eliesse Ben Seghir for the hosts, Edmond Tapsoba with Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Maza for Algeria and Christian Kofane with Cameroon. Updates on the AFCON matches involving Werkself players...
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Two Saturdays, one Friday and one Sunday: The dates for the Bayer 04 Women's team games on matchdays 16 to 19 have been finalised. Three of the four matches scheduled by the German Football Association (DFB) on Tuesday will be played at home at the Ulrich Haberland Stadium.
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Bayer 04 currently have a number of promising young talents on loan to various clubs in Europe with the aim of gaining match practice and furthering their individual development. Francis Onyeka and Farid Alfa-Ruprecht, for example, play for VfL Bochum 1848, while Artem Stepanov is a striker with 1. FC Nürnberg, coached by World Cup winner Miroslav Klose. Tim Oermann is a defender in the Austrian Bundesliga at top club SK Sturm Graz and Abdoulaye Faye is playing in France for FC Lorient, promoted to Ligue 1 this season. Bayer04.de reviews the first six months for the Leverkusen players out on loan.
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Despite a courageous display, the Bayer 04 Women missed out on a surprise at the start of the second half of the Bundesliga season. Coach Roberto Pätzold's team lost 3-0 to league leaders Bayern Munich on Monday night. An early goal from the clinical visitors, a disputed penalty and another spot-kick prevented Leverkusen, who are seventh in the table on 22 points from 14 games, from picking up a point in front of 3,011 spectators at the sold-out Ulrich Haberland Stadium.
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