Werder creates the miracle for eternity

At the end of this incredible game, striker Wynton Rufer ran through the Weser Stadium in a handstand. December 8, 1993 has gone down in the history of German soccer. 0:3 down at the break against RSC Anderlecht, Werder turned the game around.

"If we manage to score, everything is open again." In those legendary minutes on December 8, 1993, Werder coach Otto Rehhagel was in control. That was not always the case. On other days, he has shouted at his players so much that he had to ask his assistant coach Kalli Kamp the next morning whether he had once again thrown someone out in the heat of the moment.

But on this day, everything was different. Otto Rehhagel had every reason to be angry. His team was 3-0 down at half-time in the group stage of the Champions League against reigning Belgian champions RSC Anderlecht at home in the Weser Stadium. For most observers, the game is already over. But the Werder coach speaks to his players in a calm voice: "We're on the road to defeat. Now we have to use our brains."

Thirty years later, Werder defender Uli Borowka still remembers that rainy evening of December 8, 1993: "The stadium was almost empty. A third of the crowd had already left during the half-time break. Well. But then they gradually came back." Borowka remembers that it had rained almost non-stop in the days leading up to the match and that the pitch was "ankle-deep" that evening. However, Werder were not only given a cold shower by the heavens, but also by the eleven Belgians on the pitch.

"They really showed us up"

Bremen had no chance at all in the first half and were consequently 3-0 down after just 33 minutes. Almost nothing worked for Werder that evening. "They really showed us up. That was cruel. Very, very cruel," Borowka recalled and then had to smile. "But what happened during the half-time break was something I'd never seen before. Our Norwegian, Rune Bratseth, never said anything else. But now I come into the dressing room and I can just see him throwing a full drinking cup in the direction of Otto (Rehhagel). The cup is slapped against the wall behind the coach. We weren't used to such emotional leaps from Rune."

But Rune Bratseth is not only totally upset about the score - to make matters worse, he has also twisted his knee. And so, immediately after his outburst, he took refuge in the next room. Lying on the cot, Werder's doctor Dr. Karl Meschede takes a look at his recently operated knee. He gives the all-clear. The Norwegian can continue to play. Good news - especially for the coach.

And so Otto Rehhagel leaves his international Bratseth on the pitch, because he knows that a fourth goal would nip all hopes in the bud. And the Werder coach still has hope of another miracle. Because he knows his team. They are capable of anything. Even if he is probably the only one on this evening, at this moment, who still believes in a comeback.

"Everyone take off your clothes and get new ones"

Before the team leaves, Rehhagel finally orders something. The Werder professionals should put on fresh shirts: "Men, you're totally soaked. Take off your clothes and put on new ones." Perhaps Rehhagel thought to himself at this moment that at least his players would no longer look like a horde of watered poodles. But even this measure did not bear fruit at first. "Up until the 66th minute, we didn't manage much," Borowka remembers clearly, "but then things took off. Then it just went boom, boom, boom. One goal after the other!"

It was New Zealander Wynton Rufer who brought the whole of Bremen out of their deep slumber with his goal. Suddenly it's all Werder's turn. The RSC Anderlecht team is virtually overrun. Resistance? The Belgians almost completely stopped. It was the injured and fired-up Bratseth, of all people, who made it 2:3 in the 72nd minute before Bernd Hobsch equalized just eight minutes later.

People who spend the full ninety minutes in the stadium that evening notice how the stands are slowly filling up again. The spectators return. On their way home, they had registered the increasingly loud shouts from the Weser Stadium. Now they stand in the stands with their eyes wide open and no longer recognize their own team. Later that evening, Otto Rehhagel will demonstratively walk with his team into the East Curve after the match. The coach had registered exactly what had happened in the stands during the match. Afterwards, he says: "In the east curve are the honest, real fans who didn't blow the whistle even after the 0:2 - as is normally the case in our stadium. They are different to the so-called fans who left after the 0-3."

There was no stopping Werder after the equalizer. In the 83rd minute, Marco Bode scored to make it 4:3 and just a little later, Wynton Rufer scored his second goal of the evening to secure a 5:3 victory that was no longer thought possible at half-time. Uli Borowka only needs four words to describe these second, crazy 45 minutes: "That wasn't normal!" Coach Otto Rehhagel didn't really want to say much after the game either. The result spoke for itself, he told the still astonished press, giving the impression that it should have been clear to everyone that Werder would turn this game around.

Third "Miracle of the Weser"

While Rehhagel speaks his sober words, a man is still "walking" through the stadium in his undershirt doing a handstand. New Zealander Wynton Rufer had already celebrated his second goal of the evening with a somersault. Now he is not going to miss the opportunity to treat the Werder crowd to this special interlude in the mud after a very special match. Meanwhile, Uli Borowka has grabbed a Werder flag and walks through the arena in rapture and devotion next to a fan who is also waving a flag.

"Madness! Crazy! Unbelievable!" was the headline in the press the next morning, celebrating the "sensational turnaround" that has gone down in soccer history as the third "Miracle of the Weser". Even thirty years later, Werder legend Uli Borowka is not the only one who still fondly remembers that very special rainy night in Bremen on December 8, 1993: "It really wasn't normal what happened there!"

But this fantastic night on the Weser, the third miracle after the games against Spartak Moscow in 1987 and Dynamo Berlin in 1988, still has one small flaw for Uli Borowka: "We had strong opponents in the group with AC Milan, Porto and Anderlecht, no question. But we didn't have to go out inevitably. Those were games at the top end." But all that should only cloud the memory of that evening a little.