Timo Schultz didn’t want to let that happen. The FC St. Pauli coach was given a good seat in the press box at Bremen’s Weser Stadium, in bright sunshine and close to the pitch. Schultz occasionally had to get up when the spectators jumped up a few rows ahead and blocked his view. Apart from that, the 1-1 draw between SV Werder and 1. FC Nürnberg was a relaxed affair for him.
For Schultz, on Easter Sunday, there was no reason to get emotionally involved in the duel between direct competitors for promotion places. This is due to the curious competitive situation in the second division, which makes it obsolete for everyone involved to pull out a slide rule and make calculations about the further course of the season. The process would have to be repeated the next week anyway, and again the week after that, and so it would go on until the final matchday on May 15th.
By then, the game plan will have ensured that all the top teams in the second Bundesliga have played each other several times, it will then have come down to nerves of steel and other nuances – and certainly also to notes like those that Schultz made about the Nuremberg team, the St. Pauli opponents in two weeks.
The absence of defender Ömer Toprak weighs heavily at Werder
Schultz, on the other hand, is very familiar with the home team, thanks to his own practical experience on the day before. So the coach may have thought that the 1-1 draw between Werder and St. Pauli was strongly reminiscent of the 1-1 draw between Werder and Nuremberg on Sunday, and it would not be surprising if the scouts of the competitors from Darmstadt, Schalke or Hamburg have come to similar results. It’s not difficult to decipher what the Bremen team has lost since their win streak of several weeks in winter: their defense chief Ömer Toprak – and the certainty that strikers Marvin Ducksch and Niclas Füllkrug score at least one goal more than their opponents.
Missing Werder Bremen injured: Ömer Toprak (left). His sensitive calf is arguably his only deficit at a high level.
(Photo: Kalle Meincke/KBS-Picture/Imago)
Werder coach Ole Werner didn’t want to talk about individual players afterwards, and this simplification wouldn’t do justice to his expertise. Because the Bremen team continues to follow an offensive plan, the clarity of which is reminiscent of first division football. But there are some things that cannot be compensated for in a second-division squad, for example a Champions League-proven defender like Toprak, whose sensitive calf is probably his only deficit at this level. And the fact that Toprak, as Werner hinted on Sunday, may not be able to play this season at all, has resulted in a few problems for Bremen that you cannot simply coach against.
Punctually at crunch time, i.e. at the absolute wrong time, Werner has to throw his well-rehearsed central axis overboard. The coach has to move midfield strategist Christian Groß to Toprak’s position in the center of a three-man defense, which is why the next gap opens up a row further up and cannot be adequately filled. In the game against Nuremberg, this set off a chain reaction, especially in the first half, because in Toprak Werder’s defense lacked central authority, in Groß the midfield lacked its ordering authority.
This was evident, among other things, from the organization that could be improved upon in the foul that preceded club striker Nicola Dovedan’s penalty (24th minute). But you could also see that in the more sluggish play structure and in the enormous space that opened up for the visiting eleven as soon as they had overcome the first two pressing lines. “As a team, we can compensate better than today,” said Werner.
Werder still have it “in their own hands,” assures playmaker Bittencourt
In the second half, however, the dependence on Ducksch and Füllkrug could not be overlooked, despite now clear field advantages. Or just because of that? The two strikers, known and notorious in Bremen as the “ugly birds”, had shared all Werder goals between themselves in the previous eight games, against Nuremberg their finish suffered from flightiness. After the equalization by substitute Mitchell Weiser (65th), Werner said at least a “reasonable reaction” could be seen. It could have been enough for a win.
Despite Toprak’s absence due to injury and the third draw in a row, Bremen were keen to remind them of the “good starting position” at the end of the season. It’s “still in your own hands,” assured playmaker Leonardo Bittencourt, for example. The match schedule for the second division was drawn up by an unknown person, and a talented dramaturge was certainly at work: Werder is going to FC Schalke next week – and about taking over the top of the table.