The management of the Werkself youngsters were suitably disappointed. "At the end of the day it was a deserved win for Dresden," said coach Markus von Ahlen and his colleague Iraklis Metaxas added: "The lads didn't really do enough today."
Although Atakan Akkaynak, Sam Schreck and Jakub Bednarczyk, who all completed the pre-season with the Bayer 04 first team squad, were in the starting line-up, Leverkusen never found their usual and hoped-for form. "We set out to control the game but we didn't manage it. We played too slowly and, above all, we didn't function as a team. We weren’t decisive enough up front and too susceptible at the back," criticised von Ahlen.
The latter was clearly evident at set pieces with the dangerous Dresden side scoring their first two goals in that way on 15 and 56 minutes. "We lacked organisation and resolve," declared Metaxas. Güven Yalcin equalised seven minutes before the break and substitute Ömer Tokac levelled at 2-2 five minutes to play. "In those moves we succeeded in getting behind their defence. But we didn't do that enough," said von Ahlen. A minute after the second equaliser, the Dresden fans were able to celebrate the 3-2 scoreline as the Bayer 04 defence were again not compact and lacked energy in their approach.
The championship of the West group in the U19 Bundesliga starts for the Bayer 04 U19 side on Sunday 13 August with a crunch match away to Schalke 04 (11.00 CET). "We'll need to do much better than we did at Dresden if we’re going to to get a result," said von Ahlen.
Match stats:
Dynamo Dresden: Schneider – Vetterlein, Kusej (Ziehm 90'), Huber (Hauptmann 71’), Bär, Kulke, Jacob, Shubitidze, Atilgan (Engst 82’), Käppler, Stelzer
Bayer 04: Kucz – Shala, Stappmann, Boller, Popovic (Deveci 69’) – Schneider (Tokac 55’), Arik – Schreck, Akkaynak, Bednarczyk (Bukusu 78’) – Yalcin
Goals: 1-0 (15’) Atilgan, 1-1 (38’) Yalcin, 2-1 (56’), Atilgan, 2-2 (85’) Tokac, 3-2 (86’) Shubitidze
Referee: Schipke (Landsberg-Queis)
Booked: Shala, Stappmann, Tokac
Attendance: 692
Plenty going on both on and off the pitch: The Bayer 04 fan support team has organised a number of highlights for fans visiting the Werkself 2026/27 summer training camp in Blankenhain, in the Weimarer Land region. Registration for the events is now open. All the details at a glance.
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The Bayer 04 Leverkusen Women’s team and s2-Software are continuing their long-term partnership: The Werkself and the provider of pre-owned Microsoft licences have extended their contract by two years to 2028. This means s2-Software will remain the Bayer 04 sleeve sponsor for all matches in the Google Pixel Women’s Bundesliga.
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BIOGENA is the new performance partner for the Bayer 04 Leverkusen Women’s team. Under a partnership initially set to run for three years, the club and the leading Austrian micronutrient company are pooling their expertise in the areas of health, fitness and top-level performance.
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100 children from the Bayer 04 Football Academy had the chance to gain exclusive insights: As part of the summer camp, the young footballers headed inside the BayArena at midday on Tuesday, 21 July, where they were due to meet Werkself keepers Janis Blaswich and Simeon Rapsch in the press conference room. The two players took plenty of time to answer every question from the inquisitive audience – whether it was about their own careers or their first impressions of the new head coach. Finally, there was even time left to sign autographs for the young fans.
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Following the cancellation of Bayer 04’s scheduled friendly against Carl Zeiss Jena on 1 August, the Werkself have now found a new opponent for the same day and will host Rot-Weiss Essen of the 3. Liga at the Ulrich-Haberland-Stadion. Kick-off is at 11:00 CEST and tickets are available now.
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