SAMSTAG 15:30

Founded: Jul 1, 1904
Club Members: 30,000
Nickname: Die Werkself 
Coach: Xabi Alonso
Captain: Lukáš Hrádecký

DFB-Pokal: 1
UEFA Cup Winner: 1
Bundesliga.2 Champions: 1
Oberliga Mittelrhein: 2

Web Site: www.bayer04.de

If you had to tell a Bayer Leverkusen fan that 119 years of history had only earned the club the nickname Neverkusen by the British media on account of the number of runners-up medals they collected between 1997 to 2002, then you could understand their dismay. Time can be a great healer, but since emerging from the dark shadow of the ‘Horror Treble’, which saw Leverkusen narrowly miss out on a Bundesliga title before losing both the DFB-Pokal and UEFA Champions League finals (the one with that  Zinedine Zidane goal), they've faced an ongoing battle not only to remain one of Germany's top clubs but also win over a fan culture opposed to them because of their affiliation with 'Big Pharma'.

To understand Bayer 04 Leverkusen however, you first have to understand their democratic, industrial-era origins which can be traced back to 1903 when Wilhelm Hauschild wrote a letter - signed by 170 of his fellow workers - asking his employer, the pharmaceutical firm 'Friedrich Bayer and Co' to fund the formation of a sports society. The request was granted and on the 1st July 1904 Turn-und Spielverein Bayer 04 Leverkusen  were formed. Their pre-war record was largely unremarkable with much of it spent in local championships before they enjoyed a five year stay in the then top-flight Oberliga West during the 1950s. They returned for another stint in 1962 but given that their influence on the German game had by that point been pretty minimal, Leverkusen missed the cut when the German FA (DFB) were deciding which sixteen teams would be part of the inaugural Bundesliga season in 1963. Die Werkself (The Factory Team) were placed instead in the second-tier Regionalliga West where below-par performances over the next few seasons, including a relegation to the third-tier, appeared to justify the DFB's decision.

Bayer finally reached the Bundesliga in 1979, and it wasn't long before they'd got their feet under German football's top table with a number of strong campaigns - winning their first trophy after fighting back from a 0-3 first-leg deficit against Espanyol to lift the UEFA Cup in 1988. Off the field, the club made one of the most significant appointments in their history when the larger-than-life Reiner Calmund became general manager and over the next 25 years he helped turn Bayer from provincial minnows into a thoroughly professional and well-run club on the back of some astute transfer business. After German reunification in 1990, the club were quick to secure the signatures of East German stars Ulf Kirsten, Andreas Thom and Jens Melzig, and established contacts in Brazilian football to bring the likes of Jorginho and Paulo Sergio to Westphalia. Along with Czech star Pavel Hapal, Rudi Völler and 'The Blond Angel' Bernd Schuster they helped the club lift their first (and so far only) domestic honour in 1993 when they won the DFB-Pokal at the expense of minnows Hertha Berlin Amateure who were the first ever third-tier side to reach the final.

Although they had a near-miss with relegation in 1996, new coach Christoph Daum (who would later be fired for a cocaine scandal that also cost him the national manager position) built a team around the talents of Emerson, Ze Roberto and Michael Ballack as Leverkusen developed into a side that threatened to break the Bayern-Dortmund duopoly of the time, playing "... an updated version of the Dutch 'total football' of the 70s ..." as Uli Hesse described it in Tor !, his history of German football. Despite the promise though, it was around this time that Bayer also began to establish their lamentable moniker of 'Nearly Men' as over the course of four years, they finished runners-up in the Bundesliga on three occasions.

In 2000 for example, they were three points clear at the top of the table going into their final match at mid-table SpVgg Unterhaching. They only had to draw to become champions but Ballack's first-half own goal sent Leverkusen on their way to a ruinous 0-2 defeat and opened the door for Germany's trophy-hoovering machine Bayern München to leapfrog them and win the title on goal difference. Uli Hoeneß, Bayern's general manager, was less than magnanimous afterwards, taking a swipe at the runners-up by saying "Bayer will never win anything. When they play decisive games, they put their nappies on." Whether or not the assessment was fair (or if the stoniest of Leverkusen hearts weren't warmed just a little when Hoeneß was sent to jail in 2014 after being convicted of tax evasion - Schadenfreude is a German word after all !) is a moot point but the tag stuck and Leverkusen were dubbed Neverkusen by the media.

A failure to replicate that title challenge cost coach Berti Vogts his job and he was replaced by Klaus Toppmüller who had carved out a reputation for getting small clubs to punch big. His impact was immediate and after a tour-de-force campaign, both domestically and in Europe, Bayer went into the final three games of the 2001-02 season with a five point cushion over their title rivals. They'd been down this path only a couple of years before but the stakes were higher this time because in addition to being in the running for their first ever Bundesliga title, they were also in the finals of both the DFB-Pokal and, unbelievably, the UEFA Champions League. For a club that had only won two trophies throughout its entire 98-year history, suddenly being on the brink of becoming one of only four European clubs to have won the treble brought with it excitement and nervousness in equal measure, despite Toppmüller's fate-tempting assertions that "There will be no second Unterhaching! " 

The spectre of that final-day collapse loomed a little larger after Werder Bremen won at the BayArena to scythe Leverkusen's lead over Ruhr rivals Borussia Dortmund to just two points and, after Toppmüller's men crumpled to a 1-0 defeat at lowly Nürnberg in the penultimate weekend, even a final day win over Hertha Berlin wasn't enough to stop Dortmund winning the title. Worse still for Leverkusen came the news that having already lost captain and defensive stalwart Jens Nowotny to long-term injury a few weeks earlier, Michael Ballack had fractured his foot against Hertha and would have to play the two cup finals with painkilling injections.

The first of those finals, the DFB-Pokal against defending holders Schalke 04, started well enough with languid conductor Dimitar Berbatov calming Leverkusen nerves by opening the scoring after half-an-hour and it was the fans in red and black that initially rocked the foundations of the Olympiastadion. However, once Jörge Böhme had equalised for Schalke on the stroke of half-time, having a painfully thin squad running on empty after a season fighting on three fronts, a side-lined captain and a hobbled talisman caught up with Leverkusen and they ended up on the wrong end of a 4-2 score line.

Three trophies had become just one and with a Champions League final date in Glasgow against Real Madrid's Galáticos to come just a few days later, there was time enough for demons to take hold. Leverkusen fans could be forgiven for thinking that fate was against them from the moment Raul put Madrid ahead with only eight minutes on the clock. Leverkusen rallied but after Lucio had brought the underdogs level, Zinedine Zidane delivered the most brutal of knockout blows on the stroke of half-time, meeting Roberto Carlos' arching cross with a sweeping left foot volley to score one of the most replayed goals in Champions League history. Leverkusen's season was over and they had to settle for second place. Again.

As a grim addendum to that crushing fortnight, the implosion that followed was as dramatic as the rise that had taken them within three matches of football immortality. Ballack and Ze Roberto defected to Bayern München in the summer and Toppmüller was clearing his desk by February as Leverkusen went into a tailspin and were in danger of sliding out of the Bundesliga before three wins from their final four games saved them from the drop.

The allergy to silverware continued with a losing DFB-Pokal final appearance in 2009 and another (albeit distant) Bundesliga runners-up finish in 2011; and despite consistent finishes in and around the Champions League places since, the balance of power in football today makes it harder than ever for a modest-sized club like Leverkusen to achieve any success -  let alone be on the brink of an era-defining treble. The 'Horror Treble' certainly left its mark and surely only the most hard-hearted of neutrals wouldn’t be happy to see Bayer 04 Leverkusen finally have their name engraved in the sterling silver of the Meisterschale and lose the Neverkusen tag that continues to haunt them every season.