2026/2027 season

Bundesliga

Team page
Bundesliga · Team page
Bayer Leverkusen
Head coach: Carles Martínez Novell · 4-2-3-1
Rank
4th
Pts
10
P
5
Form
🟢 Good

The essentials at a glance

The summary of this page: estimated level of play, form trend and qualitative verdict. For the details, head to the other tabs.

Editors' ratings
9/10
Attack
7/10
Defence
7/10
Form
5/10
Confidence / mood
Current risk:High

4th with 10 pts from 5 matches: 3 wins, 1 draw, 1 defeat.

14 goals scored, 8 conceded.

SC Freiburg plays in Leverkusen.

Sportschau · 18 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

In the BayArena, Leverkusen receives the tables Erste Freiburg.

Sportschau · 18 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

In the pursuit duel with Leverkusen, Eintracht captain Laura Freigang was particularly in focus. Not only because of her hit, but because she had recently shown herself on the national team from an emotional side.

Sportschau · 18 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

Two of our writers pick over the German’s contribution to Liverpool and what the £116m forward could yet produce Some criticism has been OTT and a fee rising to £116m heightens demands but, yes, compared with his performances in Germany and for Germany Wirtz has underwhelmed at Liverpool. The past week has encapsulated his Liverpool career so far.

The Guardian — Football · 16 Oct 2026

How the team has played recently

Match-by-match results, record and rhythm of the current season.

Latest matches
Wvs 1. FSV Mainz 05 (A) · 4-3
Wvs RB Leipzig (H) · 2-0
Dvs FC Augsburg (A) · 2-2
Wvs 1. FC Union Berlin (H) · 4-0
Lvs SV 07 Elversberg (A) · 2-3
WWWDL
14 scored / 8 conceded over 5 matches played
Rest: 8 days since the last match · 1 match played in the last 15 days
Home form
2W - 0D - 0L
Away form
1W - 1D - 1L
Statistics

Computed from this season's scores, every time the page is shown.

Goals scored per match
2.8
Goals conceded per match
1.6
At home
6 scored · 0 conceded in 2 matches
Away
8 scored · 8 conceded in 3 matches
Over 2.5 goals
4 of 5
Both teams score
3 of 5
Clean sheets
2 of 5
Failed to score
0 of 5
Cumulative points vs league average

Not enough matchdays recorded yet for this curve — history builds up with every standings refresh.

How Bayer Leverkusen play

System, playing identity, and what sets the team apart at both ends of the pitch.

Playing identity
Preferred system
4-2-3-1
Philosophy
A project of active possession and aggressive pressing claimed by Carles Martínez from his unveiling (“We want to be active, with an aggressive style and possession”, Bundesliga.com); tactical analyses describe a 3+2 build-up structure and constant positional rotations rather than a fixed system.
Attacking strengths
An attack with strong technical potential (Schick, Tella, Maza, Moreira, Tillman): 4-0 in the first round of the Cup at Wehen Wiesbaden on 22/08/2026, then 2 goals scored at Elversberg (Schick 77', Kofane 90+1') after a poor first half; in 2025-26, the club had finished 6th with a goal difference of +21.
Defensive solidity
The current weak spot: 3 goals conceded as early as matchday 1 at Elversberg, two of them in the opening minutes of each half (8', 9', 46'); goalkeeper Mark Flekken himself estimated that the team could have been 0-5 down at half-time (WZ, 30/08/2026).
Pressing
Immediate counter-pressing claimed by the coaching staff and described by tactical analyses as a core principle (winning the ball back in the first seconds after losing it). Its concrete application cannot yet be verified: only one Bundesliga matchday has been played.
Transitions
Defensive transition is the immediate weakness: the team was caught twice on quick sequences early in a half at Elversberg. In attacking transition, the pace of Tella, Moreira and Kofane is the theoretical asset, but no verified figures are available at this stage.
StrengthDepth and versatility of the squad, heavy and targeted recruitment (Medina, Gutiérrez, Belocian, Moreira, announced return of Moussa Diaby), Patrik Schick's finishing quality, and a 4-0 in the Cup showing that the attacking potential is certainly there.
WeaknessDefensive organisation and concentration at the start of each half, the integration of a very large number of new players under a head coach who is also new, the prolonged absence of midfield signing Kennet Eichhorn, and a right defensive flank deemed inadequate until the agreement reached for Guéla Doué.

The mood around the club, and who is missing

Internal climate, relationship with the supporters, and known absences before the next match.

Mood
Squad confidence
Low and openly questioned internally. After the 3-2 defeat at promoted Elversberg, Mark Flekken criticised a lack of “mental capacity, energy and understanding of the game”, and new captain Edmond Tapsoba publicly took his share: “It was one of those bad days, especially for me.” Carles Martínez Novell responded by reworking his defence in training, with Jarell Quansah tried at right-back and Facundo Medina moved into the middle. Hosting Union Berlin on Saturday is already billed as a chance to react.
Coach / players / board relationship
The sporting directors kept working to the end of the window, with Moussa Diaby's return, the record investment made for Guéla Doué and Arthur's loan to Werder Bremen, welcomed in Bremen by Peter Niemeyer. The Robert Andrich situation, stripped of the armband in favour of Edmond Tapsoba and then pushed towards the exit before staying, remains the point of friction between dressing room and executives. No public divergence between Carles Martínez Novell and Simon Rolfes is reported.
Mood with the supporters
A public bewildered by yet another change of head coach followed by a defeat at the league's smallest budget, in a context of permanent rebuilding. Hosting Union Berlin is the season's first fixture at the BayArena and the first chance to judge the team's new face on the evidence. The European prospect, with Olympique de Marseille, RB Salzburg and Beşiktaş visiting in the Europa League league phase, at least offers an attractive horizon.
Pressure on the head coach
Real but not existential. Appointed on 4 June 2026, Carles Martínez Novell has time on his side, even if the press has spoken of a false start. He has to cope with a still unsettled centre of defence and two attacking signings to integrate, Moussa Diaby and Guéla Doué, the latter not yet having taken part in team training. No source consulted reports any question over his position.
Club objectives
No official numerical objective could be verified. The established facts: the club are in the 2026-27 Europa League after finishing 6th, with a draw pitting them against Marseille, Salzburg, Celje and Beşiktaş at home, and Lyon, Dinamo Zagreb, Lech Poznań and OFI Crete away, from 10 September to 28 January. The line Simon Rolfes states remains building a team through developing young players rather than buying established stars.
Recent internal tensions
Mark Flekken's very harsh words about the squad's mentality and Edmond Tapsoba's mea culpa exposed unease publicly on the very first matchday. To that is added the Robert Andrich situation, the player having stayed at the club after losing the armband and being pushed towards the exit. The defensive rebuild, with a right-back signed for a record fee but not yet integrated, sustains the uncertainty.
Absences
InjuredKennet Eichhorn — Metabolic disorder following heavy weight loss in mid-July; out for more than six weeks, with no return date given.
InjuredMontrell Culbreath — Foot injury; out for close to a month according to LigaInsider.
DoubtfulEliesse Ben Seghir — Muscle injury from July. Completed a large part of team training on 2 September; his inclusion in the squad against Union Berlin was still to be confirmed.
DoubtfulGuéla Doué — A signing who arrived from Strasbourg on 31 August, still training individually with a fitness coach. A place in the squad is possible, a start unlikely for lack of team sessions.

Before kick-off

What to know before the next match: statistical form, qualitative analysis, and a computed estimate of the 1/X/2 probabilities.

Next match

Bayer Leverkusen — SC Freiburg

At homeSunday 18 October at 15:30Matchday 6
It's today. Kick-off time confirmed by the league. Paris time · football-data.org fixtures.

Prediction, odds and form of both teams →

What the press says
Prediction
EstimateBayer Leverkusen — SC Freiburg
43 %
1 · Bayer Leverkusen
20 %
X · draw
37 %
2 · SC Freiburg
In-house calculation, from this page's standings data alone: 5 matches played by Bayer Leverkusen, 5 matches by SC Freiburg. Confidence: medium
The formula, in plain words — with this match's figures
  1. League average. 193 goals scored over 104 team-matches played (18 teams taken into account), i.e. μ = 1.86 goal scored per team per match. This is the reference point: everything that follows is expressed relative to it.
  2. Attacking and defensive strengths. Goals scored (or conceded) per match, divided by μ. 1.00 = exactly average; in defence, above 1.00 means “concedes more than average”.
    TeamGoalsRawKept
    Bayer Leverkusen — attack14 in 5 matches1.511.23
    Bayer Leverkusen — defence8 in 5 matches0.860.94
    SC Freiburg — attack14 in 5 matches1.511.23
    SC Freiburg — defence4 in 5 matches0.430.74
    The “Kept” column is the result of shrinkage towards the mean: weight = P / (P + 6), i.e. 0.45 for Bayer Leverkusen and 0.45 for SC Freiburg. The rest of the weight goes to the league average. This is what stops a lone 5-0 from producing an attack at 3.3 times the average — and hence a 95% probability.
  3. Home advantage (γ). Measured on the league itself: 2.23 goal scored on average by the host against 1.48 by the visitor, over the 44 fixtures present in each team's last 5 matches. Raw ratio 1.51; shrunk towards 1 (weight 0.42, on the log of the ratio) then capped at 1.25 → γ = 1.19. Shrinkage goes towards 1, i.e. no advantage at all: while the sample is small, the model does not assert a home advantage it cannot measure.
  4. Venue correction, specific to each team. Drawn from the home/away split: points per match at the venue concerned are compared to points per match over all fixtures, with stronger shrinkage (weight = P / (P + 8)) and a bound of ±12%.
    Bayer Leverkusen at home: 3.00 pts/match versus 2.00 overall over 2 matches → ×1.100
    SC Freiburg away: 2.00 pts/match versus 2.60 overall over 2 matches → ×0.954
  5. Expected goals. One side's attack is set against the other's defence. γ applies to the host only: applying it the other way round too would count the home advantage twice.
    λBayer Leverkusen = 1.86 × 1.23 × 0.74 × 1.19 × 1.100 = 2.22
    λSC Freiburg = 1.86 × 1.23 × 0.94 × 0.954 = 2.04
  6. Poisson grid. Probability of every exact score from 0-0 to 8-8, assuming the two goal totals are independent, then adding up the cells: home win 43.3%, draw 20.0%, away win 36.8% — displayed rounded to whole numbers so that they add up to exactly 100. Most likely exact score in the grid: 2-2 (only 7.2%, which says enough about how unpredictable an exact score is).
Limits of this model — they are not anecdotal.
  • It only knows goals and a venue. Neither absences, suspensions, line-ups, fatigue, stakes, weather nor club context enter the calculation — while the other tabs of this page show that they matter.
  • The assumption that the two goal totals are independent is false in reality: it slightly underestimates tight scores, hence the draw.
  • γ is measured over a rolling window (each team's last 5 matches), not over the whole season.
  • The shrinkage constants (6, 60, 8) and the bounds are choices, not measurements. They were tuned to be cautious early in the season; they were not calibrated on a results history, as none is available here.
  • No after-the-fact evaluation has been made: at this stage, nobody knows whether this model is better or worse calibrated than another.
What other sources say
No external source has been collected for this match. That is the normal state: readings are taken by hand, and an empty box is better than an unverified figure.
This block shows probability estimates, not predictions, and carries no advisory value. The in-house estimate is the result of a formula applied to a small sample; the figures from external sources are reproduced as they were collected, without their method having been verified.

The full squad

The professional squad by position, captain marked with an armband.

Goalkeepers
  • Mark Flekken
  • Janis Blaswich
  • Niklas Lomb
Defenders
  • Edmond TapsobaC
  • Loïc Badé
  • Jarell Quansah
  • Jeanuël Belocian
  • Facundo Medina
  • Miguel Gutiérrez
  • Lucas Vázquez
  • Arthur
  • Tim Oermann
  • Axel Tape
Midfielders
  • Robert Andrich
  • Aleix García
  • Ezequiel Fernández
  • Malik Tillman
  • Ibrahim Maza
  • Nathan Tella
  • Jonas Hofmann
  • Kennet Eichhorn
  • Naba Mensah
Forwards
  • Patrik Schick
  • Christian Kofane
  • Victor Boniface
  • Martin Terrier
  • Eliesse Ben Seghir
  • Afonso Moreira
  • Montrell Culbreath
Squad last verified on 31 Aug 2026 — source: sport.de — Bayer Leverkusen 2026/2027 squad (https://www.sport.de/fussball/te205/bayer-leverkusen/kader/), cross-checked with the matchday 1 line-up published by Bundesliga.com and with the captaincy confirmed by Bundesliga.com and ran.de. Includes neither Moussa Diaby nor Guéla Doué, whose transfers had not been made official as of 31/08/2026..

What has been said recently

Chronological feed of verified information about the club.

rss16 Oct 2026
The Florian Wirtz mystery: why has he not found Leverkusen form at Liverpool?
Source: The Guardian — Football
rss18 Oct 2026
Listen live: Bayer Leverkusen against SC Freiburg - Bundesliga
Source: Sportschau
rss18 Oct 2026
From 3.30 pm live - Bayer Leverkusen against SC Freiburg
Source: Sportschau
rss17 Oct 2026
Laura Freigang secures Frankfurt in Leverkusen a point
Source: Sportschau
rss17 Oct 2026
From 2 pm live - Leverkusen and Frankfurt in the duel for the CL-seats
Source: Sportschau
rss16 Oct 2026
Next setback: Pitchvogel Terrier missing Leverkusen for weeks
Source: kicker
Injury2 Sep 2026
Eliesse Ben Seghir has taken a step forward in his rehabilitation: on Wednesday the 21-year-old winger completed a large part of team training, more than six weeks after the muscle injury sustained in July. He was still absent from the squad for the trip to Elversberg. His inclusion in the squad for Union Berlin's visit, on Saturday at 15:30, will depend on his progress over the coming days.
Source: LigaInsider
Injury2 Sep 2026
The summer's most expensive signing, Guéla Doué, is for now training away from the group with a fitness coach. A place in the squad against Union Berlin is conceivable, but the number of team sessions missed makes a start unlikely. In the meantime, Carles Martínez Novell reshaped his defence after the opening defeat: Jarell Quansah was tried at right-back on Wednesday and Facundo Medina worked in the middle alongside Edmond Tapsoba.
Source: LigaInsider
Club2 Sep 2026
Before hosting Union Berlin on Saturday 5 September at 15:30, Bayer's injury list is limited to two long-term absences, Montrell Culbreath and Kennet Eichhorn. The projected line-up has Mark Flekken in goal, a Tapsoba-Medina centre-back pairing, Aleix García and Malik Tillman in midfield, and an attack led by Patrik Schick with Moussa Diaby and Ibrahim Maza.
Source: LigaInsider
Transfers1 Sep 2026
Brazilian full-back Arthur, 23, has been loaned to SV Werder Bremen until the end of the 2026-27 season. Bremen's director of professional football, Peter Niemeyer, praised “a player who can help us immediately, he knows the Bundesliga”, and head coach Daniel Thioune believes he “will settle in quickly”. The player, a domestic double winner with Bayer in 2024, has 44 Bundesliga and 13 Champions League appearances.
Source: LigaInsider
Transfers1 Sep 2026
Deadline day was busy: Moussa Diaby returned to the club from Al-Ittihad and full-back Guéla Doué was signed from Racing Club de Strasbourg for a fee that could reach €37.5m, a record for Bayer.
Source: Fussballdaten
Transfers31 Aug 2026
Agreement concluded with RC Strasbourg for Ivorian right-back Guéla Doué (23): €30m fixed, up to €37.5m including bonuses, five-year contract subject to a medical. Transfer not yet made official by the club at the date of consultation.
Source: LigaInsider
Head coach30 Aug 2026
After the defeat, Carles Martínez Novell asked for a response: “They play very well, I was not surprised, we expected it. We have to learn from this, open our eyes and improve a great deal.” Goalkeeper Mark Flekken was harsher: “There was a lack of mentality, a lack of energy, a lack of understanding of the game.”
Source: Supertipp
Other29 Aug 2026
Bayer's new captain, Edmond Tapsoba, took responsibility for the opening disaster at Elversberg in remarks to the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger: “We started both halves badly. We conceded two goals in less than ten minutes.” The Burkinabè went further: “It was one of those bad days, especially for me. My first Bundesliga match as captain, and it was simply a bad day.” Before concluding: “Now it is over. We have to forget it as quickly as possible.”
Source: Bulinews
Result29 Aug 2026
A failed opening: Leverkusen lost 3-2 at promoted SV Elversberg in Carles Martínez Novell's first match in charge. Two down after eleven minutes and then 3-0 straight after the restart, the Rhinelanders reacted only late through Patrik Schick (80) and Christian Kofane (90+1).
Source: Sportschau
Other29 Aug 2026
A failed start for Carles Martínez: Leverkusen lose 2-3 at promoted SV Elversberg on matchday 1 (Petkov 8', Campbell 9', Mokwa 46'; Schick 77', Kofane 90+1'). Mark Flekken: “Mental capacity, energy and understanding of the game, everything was missing today.”
Source: Westdeutsche Zeitung (WZ)
News last verified on 18 Oct 2026. Sources: sports press (L'Équipe, Le Parisien, Foot Mercato, regional press…) and official club websites — see the link on each item.
Editorial content (playing style, mood, absences, external prediction sources) last verified on 3 Sep 2026. The standings/form data above are refreshed automatically — as is the 1/X/2 estimate, recomputed on every view.