Bundesliga - Werder Bremen: "Trend-setting match" against Augsburg
Werder Bremen's head of soccer Clemens Fritz first had to collect himself. The appallingly poor performance in the 2-0 (0-1) defeat in Stuttgart had left the ex-professional feeling a bit weary. The Green-Whites had been completely without a chance in Swabia on Saturday evening. They had resigned themselves to their fate without putting up any resistance.
When Fritz was asked whether that was his team's weakest performance of the season so far, he was not about to argue. "I don't have all the minutes of this season in my head right now, but I think you can say that," said Fritz.
With their eighth defeat of the season in their 13th game, the situation has worsened considerably for Bremen. The brief upward trend with five points from the games against Union Berlin, VfL Wolfsburg and Eintracht Frankfurt has fizzled out again, with the relegation places just two points away. The next home game against FC Augsburg is now of huge importance. Another defeat and the criticism of coach Ole Werner is likely to increase again.
"We have to win this one, we need a different performance from the whole team," demanded captain Marco Friedl. Fritz also took the players to task: "We need a different performance against Augsburg. Otherwise it won't work against Augsburg either."
Friedl had no explanation for the performance in Stuttgart. "We missed everything you can miss," said the Austrian. "I can't remember ever being played like that by a team - except maybe Bayern."
Indeed, Bremen had nothing to counter Stuttgart's speed in particular. "Everything we did, we did far too slowly," admitted Werner candidly. "Especially defensively." The best thing about the break was the result. Because VfB wasted chances in the first 45 minutes, the score was only 0:1 at half-time thanks to a goal from ex-Bremer Deniz Undav (17th minute). But even after the break, Werder never really came into contention for a point.
It was only after Serhou Guirassy made it 2-0 with a quarter of an hour to go with a penalty after a previous mistake by Werder goalkeeper Michael Zetterer that Bremen got into the game a little better. Partly because the hosts took it a little easier after that. "That was sobering, because at no point did I get the feeling that we could do anything here," said veteran Leonardo Bittencourt.
The next few days will now be about sharpening their senses once again and preventing a total collapse against Augsburg. "We have a very crucial game next week," said Werner, who, however, urged everyone to remain calm. "Everything is very tight down there in the table and we are rightly where we are," said the Werder coach. "The situation is certainly difficult, but it's nothing that should come as a complete surprise to us."
Bundesliga table Review on Werder homepage Quotes on Werder homepage
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Source: www.stern.de
