As with last week, when Victor Boniface and Odilon Kossounou called in on the children, a relaxed round of questions took place on the coaches benches at the BayArena. In warm summer weather, 60 children gathered in excited mood for the arrival of Arthur. When the door to the changing rooms finally opened the Brazilian was greeted with loud applause.
Arthur revealed to the children that he liked to listen to music before matches to be able to fully concentrate on the game. On the best moment of his career to date, the 21-year-old said: "The best moment was when we won the German league title. It was a great day and the atmosphere was brilliant. I really like the atmosphere with our fans at the BayArena."
With the question of who his best friend is in the team, Arthur had to think for a moment but then said with certainty: "Everybody!" The Brazilian also provided a swift response the question "Düsseldorf or Cologne?" Arthur: "Leverkusen!"
The Brazilian also revealed to the children that his fellow countrymen Ronaldinho and Neymar were his role models in football, his home country of Brazil is also his favourite holiday destination and that his teammate Jeremie Frimpong is the funniest man in the dressing room.
The relaxed round of questions, where the children also praised Arthur for his good German, was followed by the next traditional highlight of the day: Selfies and autographs with the Werkself player. The children bought their own Meisterschale with them. Arthur spent a lot of time meeting the many requests from the children. Finally there was a group photo before the 21-year-old headed back to the dressing room leaving behind a sea of beaming faces.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen will have to manage without centre-back Edmond Tapsoba in the coming weeks. The Burkina Faso international returned to the Werkself from the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco with a muscle injury.
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The Werkself are away to Hamburg SV at the end of the Hinrunde in the 2025/26 Bundesliga campaign. The match at the newly promoted club is on Tuesday night, 13 January (kick-off: 20:30 CET). Ahead of the first encounter with HSV since 2018, Kasper Hjulmand spoke about the strengths of the opponents, lessons learnt from the home defeat against VfB Stuttgart and provided a squad update.
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In Germany, the temperatures are currently around zero, leaving even professional footballers freezing - but not the Bayer 04 Women. Roberto Pätzold's team have fled the cold to the south and are preparing for the second half of the season at a training camp in the Algarve, almost 2,000 kilometres away from home as the crow flies. The Leverkusen squad landed in Faro on Saturday morning and have already completed the first three training sessions over the weekend.
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It was a disappointing Saturday night. The Werkself lost 4-1 to VfB Stuttgart to start the new year on Bundesliga matchday 16 in 2025/26, a result that left both players and fans disappointed. "We played without any passion," said Alejandro Grimaldo honestly afterwards. Teammate Jarell Quansah was even more self-critical, emphasising: "We were miles off it in the first half. You can't put in a performance like that, especially in front of our own fans and I can only apologise to them, to be honest." Read on for the reaction, facts and stats from the clash with VfB Stuttgart in the Werkself review.
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