Werder Bremen’s fall from grace
On a blustery, rain-soaked Sunday afternoon, Werder Bremen slid closer to their doom: relegation from the Bundesliga. As the storm clouds gathered and released their rainy weight upon the Weser Stadium, both the Werder players and manager appeared bereft of confidence in the end, their collective belief doused first by the rain, and then by Wolfsburg’s 82nd -minute winner. As they stood soaked to their skin after the final whistle, the grim reality of their impending relegation seemed sharper than ever, while the driving elements continued to mock their demise.
Pathetic fallacy aside, Werder’s season has been one marked by disappointment after disappointment, each poor performance stacking up like a house of cards before collapsing into the rubble that is this very real threat of the club’s first relegation from the Bundesliga since 1980. Coach Florian Kohfeldt has done his level best to keep a positive attitude, but the reality is that Werder have been some way short of the standards required for survival in Germany’s top flight, and are rarely fancied in the odds on the Bundesliga games each week.
It’s a steep and sad fall from grace for a club who were once a force to be reckoned with in both the Bundesliga and in Europe, with famous names like Torsten Frings, Per Mertesacker, Mesut Özil and others woven into the fabric of this great institution. They are four-time Bundesliga champions, having last won the title in 2004, and famously won the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup in 1992, as well as reaching the final of the Europa League (then UEFA Cup) in 2009, where they narrowly lost a pulsating final to Shakhtar Donetsk in Istanbul.
But great historic clubs struggling and battling relegation seems to be a regular occurrence in the Bundesliga in recent seasons. The likes of Hamburg and Stuttgart have endured the dreaded drop in recent campaigns, while even Borussia Dortmund flirted with relegation in Jürgen Klopp’s final season at the club in 2014-15, before eventually arresting their slide. Werder Bremen are the latest club to experience the sharp, unforgiving claws of the drop zone, and the race is one to avoid falling through the relegation trapdoor.
Indeed, there is still hope for Werder. It will take an almighty effort, and for Mainz to drop points, but where there is a will there is a way. With Werder six points from safety with only four games remaining, it’s a tall order to achieve survival according to the betting tips on the German football. But then, this is the same side that finished in a healthy 8th position in the Bundesliga last season, so there’s no reason why they couldn’t string a few wins together as the campaign reaches its climax.
Indeed, Werder’s recent Bundesliga finishes highlight the strangeness of their under-performance this season. They are usually comfortable in the middle reaches of the table at least, even qualifying for Europe on occasions, and that’s why their slide into the choppy waters of relegation is so surprising and so sad. The recent loss against Wolfsburg felt like a defining moment. They gave a decent performance overall, but they couldn’t take their chances and in the end, the visitors’ late winner seemed inevitable. The job facing Kohfeldt and his team is to reverse the misfortunes that have enshrouded the club in recent times, and pull together to make one last stand against the threat of relegation.