Saturday May 22, 2021
Four championship titles, two relegations
Bremen’s long Bundesliga crash
In the all-time table of the Bundesliga, Werder Bremen is in third place. The past seasons, on the other hand, read like the chronicle of an announced relegation, the second in the club’s history. The long decline began under the coach who now fails as a savior. A chronicle in words and numbers.
Werder Bremen is relegated from the Bundesliga for the first time in 41 years. The four-time German champions are still the club with the most Bundesliga games and number three in the all-time Bundesliga table behind Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund.
But Werder’s sporting decline began many years ago – in the first term of office of the returning record coach Thomas Schaaf, who this time failed because of his job as “rescue coach”.
2010 to 2013
Even after winning the German championship in 2004, Schaaf led Bremen into the Champions League five times. From 2010 onwards, however, this no longer worked. Over the years, Werder had put together a Champions League squad, which could no longer be paid without Champions League income. It was during this time that Werder were forced to save, and it was precisely in these years that the club lost contact with the top of the Bundesliga.
2013 to 2016
It came, saw and failed: Thomas Eichin succeeded Bremen’s permanent manager, but remained hapless.
(Photo: dpa)
After saying goodbye to sports director Klaus Allofs in November 2012, Bremen did exactly what critics keep demanding today: With Thomas Eichin, they brought in a man from outside as managing director, someone who had no Werder past as a player or manager. After only three months, Eichin also announced the separation from club icon Schaaf and said quite unsentimentally: “That was not a resignation.”
However, today’s Bayer Leverkusen youth boss made himself vulnerable because he brought in the wrong coaches (Dutt, Skripnik) or players (Hajrovic, Makiadi). His end in Bremen 2016 arose from a classic Werder conflict: Eichin wanted to part ways with coach Skripnik despite the relegation prevented, but the supervisory board stuck to the long-time Bremen professional.
2016 to 2019
Eichin’s successor was Werder’s honorary captain Frank Baumann, who initially extended Skripnik’s contract and shortly afterwards gave the Ukrainian a leave of absence. The success did not come immediately, but Baumann made many clever transfers in the first few years such as Max Kruse or Thomas Delaney, which gave Werder a sporting upswing and in some cases also a high resale value.
Florian Kohfeldt has been head coach since 2017 – and was fired on matchday 33 of the current season after just one point from nine league games.
(Photo: imago images / Nordphoto)
In autumn 2017, the sports director promoted the previous U23 coach Florian Kohfeldt to head coach, the 2018/19 season was the most successful in a long time with reaching the DFB Cup semi-finals and eighth place in the Bundesliga. It aroused the hope of being able to establish a similar era with the Baumann / Kohfeldt duo as almost 20 years earlier with Klaus Allofs and Thomas Schaaf.
2019 to 2021
What followed was a sporting and economic slump on a scale never thought possible. For a lot of money, Werder signed players like Yuya Osako or Ömer Toprak from 2018, who have hardly any resale value. The corona pandemic and the associated loss of income of up to 40 million euros increased the financial worries again.
A year ago, the Bremen rescued only in the relegation from relegation. That is now sealed after a 2: 4 against Borussia Mönchengladbach and nine defeats in the last ten league games. The prospects would not have been good even if they had been relegated. Werder now urgently have to sell players without being able to put the money back into the team.
After relegation for the first time in 1979/80, Werder managed to climb back up straight away – and only eight years later celebrated the second championship title in the club’s history. This time, however, many Werderans will be worried about their north rivals Hamburger SV, against whom there will now be professional duels again after three years. Because HSV has been stuck in the 2nd league for three years after its first relegation in 2018.
.