Werder Bremen started the season with great ambitions, but was deep in the basement shortly before the winter break and must reach Munich, of all people, to fight fear (Saturday at 3.30 pm in LIVETICKER). But why does the team of the famed Florian Kohfeldt come under expectations?
Florian Kohfeldt is not wrong in saying that the man likes to talk a lot. Kohfeldt is a very special phenomenon among coaches in the Bundesliga, because he takes time for the interlocutors and even in unpleasant or difficult situations not only maintains calm, but can also formulate complex things that are understandable with eloquence and polished rhetoric.
At present, the situation at Werder Bremern is not so that people wanted to talk about it voluntarily. Obviously not as the person responsible for the athletic lineage. But Kohfeldt remains faithful in his most difficult phase as a coach in the Bundesliga and moderates everything as best as he can: the many accidents, the many goals scored, the few points, the poor performance, the individual mistakes, the sober that results.
Werder Bremen is 14th after 14 match days with 14 points, relegation place is a very short distance, two points. Seventh place, and with some luck, it could be: in the case of a cheap pairing in the DFB Cup Final, even enough to get into international business, ten points away and currently occupied by Bavaria. On Saturday, there will be a meeting with the two traditional clubs in the Allianz Arena, and Bremen longing for placement will likely be a point or two further away after the match.
Werder Bremen: Europe? Drop the fight?
Although Bayern had a complete earnings crisis in the last two series matches, but their playful performances were so many classes better than Bremen that anything less than a consistent Munich victory would come as a surprise. Whoever is stuck, you have to say it so hard, in a big crisis, and clearly still can't really decide internally how to deal with it. Although some players no longer strictly refuse to look down instead of upward, another part remains with the finalized goal of the European Cup.
The boundary between fine talk and sober realism is currently very narrow in Bremen, no one really wants to be lured out of the reserve. The figures, as well as the classification of recent achievements, speak a very clear language: The seasonal goal is unlikely to be reached, until further notice, the subject of Werder is "relegation match". The reasons for one of the obvious crashes of an ambitious team this season are different and sometimes difficult to understand.
Werder had terrible bad luck with injuries, especially in the defense dropped the players in ranks. This led to a number of players and strange positions from some players, it could not play any solid formation.
Maybe the team was missing some luck at some point. However, five points from seven home games cannot be explained by this alone. The only win was against Augsburg, which is now well over three months ago. In 16 competitive matches Werder has never been without goals, even in the cup against second and fifth division teams from Heidenheim and Delmenhorst was not zero. Eleven goals caused by standards are the worst of all 18 teams in the league. All this cannot be discussed or put into perspective.
Florian Kohfeldt: No discussions about the coach
Elsewhere, the debate over the coach would have been ignited for a long time. Things are different again in Bremen. There is no breach or dissent between coach Kohfeldt and his manager Frank Baumann. He feels support from the leadership, Kohfeldt said at the press conference Thursday. "But I'm not leaning back now thinking, & # 39; As long as nothing is being talked about about me, everything is fine. & # 39; Something like this is far from me. The general situation is gnawing at us all, it's not any question. "
Kohfeldt and his coaching staff have already tried a lot this season, forced the team to change their positions either on a voluntary or voluntary basis, changed positions, and the basic rules varied as their orientation. So far there has been nothing but small straw fires. Werder had to adjust his game because Max Kruse no longer has the most important scorer. Along the way, they arrived many injured and at some point "no matter how, the main winner somehow" Attitude. It brought one or two points, but in the end the team had to interfere through a fairly long phase.
Which ultimately explains the performance pants of some key players, at least in the beginning. Jiri Pavlenka wobbled in some matches, Maximilian Eggestein experiencing the late effects of a far too short summer for the first time in his young career. Last season's startup had only a few days off due to the European Championships under 21, and, like Davy Klaassen, has been running desperately for its form in recent weeks.
Werder Bremen: hope for the second half of the season
Classic Werder football, which the team had so much fun with even for neutral observers last season, has gone a bit out of it. At the moment it gets high in the stadium when Milot Rashica gets the ball, even though it is in the middle line. Then something could happen: In sadness, Rashica is something like the bright spot and one of the few constants in the team.
Niclas Füllkrug is said to have been one of them. The returnees were not only in demand as a violent frame in the opponent's penalty area, but also as a type and leader, even in the cabin. And as someone who can sometimes hurt the opponent and give this otherwise pretty good team a somewhat rugged contour. But Füllkrug has torn the leash and, in the worst case, will not return until the new season.
That is why the usual endurance slogans apply until the winter break. That should be six points from the remaining three matches, says Kohfeldt. That would be 20 points and a reasonable basis for attacking again in the back series. Because that's where the real hope lies: that this first half series was just a miss, that the injured are gradually coming back and then staying healthy. And then they might come back like they did in the previous race: Werder scored 31 points.