Werder Bremens first official game of the 2005/2006 season will take place on Saturday when they meet Bayer 04 Leverkusen in the Premiere-League Cup. Simon Rolfes will be on hand to greet his old colleagues having left for Alemania Aachen and then on to Leverkusen after five years on the Weser. The game kicks off at 3:30pm at the LTU-Arena in Dusseldorf and you can follow all the League Cup action live on pay-t.v. channel 'Premiere'.
Werder completed their trainings camp in Schruns, Austria on Friday and then headed on to Altenrhein where they caught a flight to Dusseldorf. On the back of a hard fought 3:1 win against Partizan Belgrade, Werder now await another hefty challenge in the form of Bayer Leverkusen. Bayer trainer Klaus Augenthaler has now a fuller squad available to him as he had recently during his trainings camp in St.Gallen, Switzerland.
Striker Dimitar Berbatov returns to the side having recovered from a viral infection and he is posed to team up alongside Andrej Voronin who was also missing recently having had to return home for private reasons. Two further Bayer starts who had been involved in the Confed-Cup returned to the squad on Thursday and are expected to line out on Saturday. Werder and Leverkusen will both have their strongest eleven on the pitch come kick-off on Saturday. Leverkusen have had to indure three defeats in their last three friendlies against such diverse opposition as Swiss third Division side FC Wil (2:3), Polish first division heroes Legia Warsaw (1:2) and Champions League winners Liverpool FC (0:3).
Werder fans making their way to Dusseldorf and the LTU Arena will get two games for the price of one with their tickets also valid for the subsequent tie between Hertha BSC Berlin and VfB Stuttgart.