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Xhaka called London home for seven years during his time at Arsenal and said he had a “great time here”. Now the Switzerland international returns for the first time with Bayer 04 and is preparing for an encounter at the London Stadium, where the 31-year-old experienced a number of exciting match-ups. “There are regularly over 60,000 people in the stadium. Same again tomorrow. And they definitely won’t be there for us. But we come here with great confidence from the first leg and want to progress. That’s clear,” he said.
When asked, the midfielder didn’t want the weekend’s title celebrations to be an excuse for Thursday. “Obviously we celebrated a little, but within reason. We have a big task ahead of us again tomorrow. We want to reach the semi-finals. We’re very hungry.”
Coach Alonso is expecting a “hard game. West Ham showed Freiburg that they can overcome a first-leg defeat.” The Hammers had lost 1-0 in Germany in their round of 16 tie but then progressed thanks to a 5-0 win back at home. “We’ll play our game and definitely won’t just defend. That’s not our way,” he added.
The Spaniard firmly believes that the Werkself will again perform well in this second leg: “The players give me no doubt about believing in them. Their concentration, focus and hunger are special.”
The Werkself can count on the support of over 3,000 travelling fans from Leverkusen for a sold-out away section at the London Stadium.
One person who isn’t in the UK capital is Borja Iglesias. “He’s got muscular problems. We need to wait and see how things are with him in the coming days. It could well be that he also misses Dortmund. We need to see with him and Adam Hlozek whether they’ll be ready for the Stuttgart game,” explained Alonso, who otherwise has a full squad at his disposal. And they are all ready, as the coach explained, since “we want to take our big chance in the Europa League as well.”
The FIFA World Cup 2026 in the USA, Canada and Mexico is underway. A total of eight Leverkusen players are taking part in the 23rd World Cup, with 48 teams in the tournament for the first time. Bayer04.de brings you all the latest from Werkself players at the World Cup.
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A goal-fest to kick off the U19 European Championship in Wales: Germany defeated Denmark 4–3 in their first Group A fixture. Both Montrell Culbreath and captain Francis Onyeka were in the starting line-up, with the latter scoring the first goal of the game from the penalty spot on five minutes.
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Bayer 04 have transferred U19 midfielder Emmanuel Chigozie Owen to FC Utrecht in the Eredivisie.
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Renovation work has been underway at the BayArena for several weeks now as part of the stadium’s routine refurbishment after 17 years. More and more of the new folding seats – which, from next season, will provide significantly greater comfort and make it easier to move between rows – have now been installed. The new high-quality seats have now been fitted throughout the entire east stand, giving the BayArena a new lease of life.
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