Let the battle commence!

It was now time for my first few competitive matches with Werder Bremen. Our first game was away against Trier in the 1st round of the German Cup.

It was a chance to test my squad out against some weaker opposition but it turned out to be tougher than I expected. We scored the first goal though on 19 minutes as an amazing turn by Claudio Pizzaro allowed him one on one with the keeper and he slotted home. I thought the floodgates would then open but then to my suprise Trier scored straight before half-time. At half-time I told the players to do it for the fans and to immediate effect we scored two minutes after the break. Pizarro showed his skill again to play Hernanes in for a goal on his debut. For the rest of the match we were on top and they never really looked like equaliazing. The match finished 2-1 to us.

I was pleased with the result and the 2nd half perfomance. The man of the match had to go with Claudio Pizarro with his goal and an assist.

Before the next match was the draw for the EURO Cup 4th Qualifying Round. He were drawn against Tromso and we will play away first 🙂

The next match was my first league game with Werder Bremen, home against Nurnberg. It is a team I would expect to beat but there are no bad German teams so I am not going to get complacent. Before the match, we were given the boost of the arrival of Nabil Dirar, whom I said we were it talks with on my last post. He shall give us another option on the wide areas from the bench.

The match started off quite poorly but we were posing a threat from set plays. Finally, we got a break when Naldo got fouled in the area and we had to a penalty. To my disbelief, Claudio Pizzario missed the penalty. Frings will be on them from now on. We continued to dominate the half and made lots of chances but we couldn’t convert any of them. I couldn’t believe it was 0-0 at half-time. We were looking very dangerous from corners, thanks to the guide from Football Manager Guru. I told the players we can win this and they obviously got my message, putting HUGE pressure on the Nurnberg defenders but yet again they couldn’t score in the whole of the second half. I was dissapointed with the result because on another day we coud have won 5 or 6-0 if we took our chances and we deserved all 3 points, but we only got 1. (Football can be so cruel! 🙂 )

Man of the match has to go to the Nurnberg goalkeeper Raphael Schafer for somehow keeping out so many shots.

My second league match I expected to be much harder, away vs. Stuttgart.

We started the match well and found ourselfs in the lead after 16 minutes after Naldo headed in from a corner. After this, we created very little and Stuttgart deservedly equalized on 38 minutes. The first have ended with the scores at 1-1 and I told the players to do it for the fans. They didn’t react that much though as Stuttgart were in complete control for the second half. The match finished 1-1 which was a bit of a steal on our part.

Man of the match: Naldo for scoring for us and defending like a here (got a rating of 9!)

The first two league matches have not been brilliant so I decided that if I didn’t win my EURO Cup match in midweek I would change tactic to a 4-4-2. The squad isn’t gelling yet and a more simple tactic might work to gel the team together more. I must test my current tactic once more though against Tromso in the EURO Cup 4th round qualifying.

Before the Tromso match, we were drawn against Kaiserslautern in the German Cup 2nd round. I decided to make a slight change to my line-up before the Tromso game, bringing Mariusz Lewandowski in for Tim Borowski. I will play Lewandowski as a DM so Frings will move up to CM to play along side Hernanes. I want to give Frings a bit more attackive freedom. Also, Clemens Fritz has the flu so I will have to play Pasanen at right back.

The match started off well for us and we took the lead on 16 minutes through yet another Naldo header. We were in complete control but an error by our centre back Mertesacker allowed a Tromso player to smash it in from 25 yards out. We had played reasonably well and we desrved to be in the lead so I was frustated that they had equalized. Thankfully, Torsten Frings showed some class by scoring a good goal from 20 yards out. It was 2-1 to us at half-time. The rest of the match was quite poor and it finished as a 2-1 victory to us.

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We should now qualify for the next round considering we are playing the 2nd leg at home. Man of the match: Frings for a great performance in centre midfield. About the tactic, I am still not 100% convinced as our goals came from a corner and a long range shot. I shall give it another chance though as I have tweaked it a little before my next match against Hoffenheim so I would like to see if my changes have worked.

I don’t really want to describe this match and this picture is all you really need to know

A very poor result and it sums up my first few games in charge, dissapointing. I don’t know whether my team needs time to gel or whatever but I am going to create a new tactic to see if that works.

I am not going to get too down-hearted though as it is early days and the problem is fixable, hopefully 🙂 !

Thanks for reading and all comments will be appreciated.