An otherwise-overlooked small German city dominated by a pharmaceuticals plant is making its case to be considered one of Europe’s soccer capitals as Bayer Leverkusen plays a historic unbeaten season.
FILE - The Bayer logo is pictured at the main chemical plant of German Bayer AG on Thursday, Aug. 9, 2019 in Leverkusen, Germany. A low-rise city of 167,000 that grew up around the factories of the pharmaceuticals giant Bayer, Leverkusen has little to draw tourists besides its internationally famed soccer club. The team finished an entire German Bundesliga season unbeaten Saturday and is now targeting trophies in the Europa League and German Cup.
“It’s definitely very important for how people identify,” Bayer Leverkusen fan Sebastian Thiel told The Associated Press ahead of the final league game of the season Saturday. “It makes the city special.”Brazil’s Vasco da Gama and 777 Partners in legal battle for control of soccer clubExcluding the 30,000-capacity BayArena, Leverkusen is probably best known for a 51-meter-tall illuminated Bayer logo which shines over the city at night.
For an industrial city, Leverkusen can be cosy — perhaps surprisingly so — with single-family houses and small apartment blocks backing onto a park that leads to the BayArena. “More beautiful than people think, but obviously shaped by the big cities around it,” Thiel said of his home town. Not everyone sees it that way. Many German soccer fans were delighted to see perennial league winner Bayern Munich beaten, but some are skeptical about the new champion’s close ties to Bayer. It’s one of two Bundesliga clubs with a formal exemption from so called 50+1 rules mandating control by fans. The other is Volkswagen-owned Wolfsburg.
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