The Berliner Morgenpost believes the Werkself were "distracted and careless from the start and their approach provided unexpected help for the neighbours." And the Kölner Stadt Anzeiger was surprised by the Bayer 04 display in the 62nd Bundesliga derby and added: "It was bewildering how readily Heiko Herrlich's team, without Lars Bender (injured) and Kevin Volland (birth of his daughter), fell into all the traps almost voluntarily after a run of ten away games without defeat. Poor passes, pointless dribbling and weak challenges led to losing possession and FC Köln counter-attacks that put the Werkself under constant pressure. The rest was down to individual errors." The Frankfurter Allgemeine reports: "In all aspects of the game – breaking moves down, tackling and challenging, one-on-ones, the will to win– the relegation-threatened big club were superior to their neighbours positioned much higher up the table."
According to the report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, "the favourites from the other side of the Rhine played more or less as coach Heiko Herrlich had feared in public when he provided his preview of the derby, specifically warning against FC Köln's quality. In spite of that, his team demonstrated inexplicable lethargy against their opponents with the highly talented forward line of Kai Havertz, Leon Bailey and Julian Brandt leading the way.".The Rheinische Post adopted a similar view with the reporter focusing on the importance of attitude in football that Heiko Herrlich often talks about and the game was summed up under the headline 'Köln's mentality beats Bayer's quality.'
The Tagesspiegel writes that the Bayer 04 game did liven up with the introduction of Joel Pohjanpalo at the start of the second half, "but, other than good chances for Julian Brandt and Sven Bender, there wasn't much doing. The result was settled by Simon Zoller when he exploited a mistake by Charles Aranguiz to easily make it 2-0." That means Bayer 04 have missed "the chance to improve their position in terms of the four Champions League spots. The team under coach Heiko Herrlich remain in fifth place." (Ruhr Nachrichten)
In addition to the many unusual defects in the Werkself game, the press focus on the red card shown to Lucas Alario (33') – the Kölnische Rundschau identified the violent conduct of the Werkself's Argentinian striker as the "crucial moment in Leverkusen's game," as he "made it more difficult for his team to get back into the game." (Frankfurter Allgemeine) – "The Bayer coach Heiko Herrlich had warned his players before the derby and pointed out they had to keep control of their nerves in spite of the emotion of the game." (Kölnische Rundschau)
The Kicker highlights an unenviable statistic in this respect: "For the fourth time this season after the matches against Leipzig, Dortmund and Schalke. Bayer, with 35 red cards before half-time the holders of an unenviable Bundesliga record, only picked up two points in those four games."
The Bayer 04 women’s team secured a win in the friendly during the international break. Without a total of eight international players, coach Roberto Pätzold’s team defeated Bundesliga 2 side Borussia Mönchengladbach 3–1 at the Kurtekotten Training Centre, thanks to goals from Lobke Loonen (1’, penalty), Caroline Kehrer (41') and Valentina Mädl (66').
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Bayer 04 will have to manage without striker Christian Kofane in the coming weeks. The 20-year-old sustained a muscle injury to his left thigh on international duty with the Cameroon national team during the recent international break. This will prevent him from playing in the upcoming Werkself matches.
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FSV Mainz 05 went into the international break on the back of an away win at Borussia Mönchengladbach. Currently sixth in the table, the Rheinhessen side – who have been impressive on the road – now aim to continue their good start to the Bundesliga campaign at home when they face the Werkself on Saturday, 10 October (kick-off: 15:30 CEST). In terms of squad selection, Urs Fischer once again has more options at his disposal. Up front, the Mainz coach is likely to continue relying on what is currently the league’s most successful strike partnership. The lowdown on our next opponents.
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Exciting experiences and exclusive insights into the Werkself and the BayArena awaited the young footballers from the BA04 Football Academy Guangzhou in China during their visit to the Rhineland this week. As well as taking part in a joint training session with the Bayer 04 Football Academy, the youngsters marvelled at the Bundesliga club’s stadium during a guided tour. The highlight of the visit was a private press conference with former Bayer 04 striker Stefan Kießling, during which he shared tips from his own career with the young players. On Saturday afternoon, 10 October, the group will round off their visit by supporting the Werkself in the away match in Mainz.
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Fans ask, Carolin Simon answers: As part of Bayer 04’s second Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on Reddit, the Leverkusen captain took questions from the community. The full-back, who returned to the club this summer after ten years away, set aside an hour and a half for the Q&A session with fans, offering a very personal insight into, amongst other things, her daily life as a footballer and her role as captain, as well as her passion for Pokémon.
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