The team under head coach Sven Hübscher opened the cup campaign with a 1-0 win at the South West Regional League side TSV Schott Mainz. The only goal of the game was scored by Emrehan Gedikli (72’).
The draw for the last 16 matches included 14 professional teams and two amateur sides. The teams in the amateur pot are from clubs whose first teams are not in the Bundesliga or the second division – this year they are the youth teams from FC Carl Zeiss Jena and SV Wehen Wiesbaden.
As the semi-finals and the final in the 2019/20 season fell victim to the coronavirus pandemic as did the matches from the Round of 16 last term, VfB Stuttgart can continue to be called the current U19 Cup winners – even though their triumph dates back to the summer of 2019..
The VfB U19s beat Werder Bremen 2-1 in the first round of the youth cup. The team under head coach Nico Willig are currently third in the South/Southwest Youth Bundesliga with nine points from four games.
Round of 16 ties:
FC Carl Zeiss Jena vs Borussia Dortmund
SV Wehen Wiesbaden vs SC Freiburg
Borussia Mönchengladbach vs RB Leipzig
FC Nürnberg vs Hertha BSC
Hannover 96 vs FC Hansa Rostock
Bayer 04 vs VfB Stuttgart
Fortuna Düsseldorf vs Dynamo Dresden
TSG Hoffenheim vs Bayern Munich
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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