SV Werder Bremen face a tough test on Sunday (16/04/2023, 15:30 CEST), when they welcome high-flyers SC Freiburg to the wohninvest WESERSTADION. The Breisgau side are currently in fifth place and have been playing a solid season so far, developing a reputation for posing a serious threat from set pieces. “They have scored 40% of their goals in this manner. That’s a lot,” head coach Ole Werner remarked during the pre-match press conference.
Before delving into his thoughts about this weekend’s opponents, Werner first addressed the lessons learned from the 2-2 draw against Mainz last time out. In addition to defending well on long ball and posing problems for FSV in the final third, the coach also highlighted the team’s morale. “We fought right until the end and believed that we would be able to take something from the game. Once again, we were rewarded for this mindset,” Werner praised. “That’s a quality that will be very important in the season run-in. Our games will continue to be close affairs. It will always come down to having the right mindset and the belief that we have what it takes to win close contests.”
The meeting between the sides earlier this season ended in a 2-0 defeat, with Marco Friedl being shown a straight red early on. “Obviously, it’s tough to draw many conclusions from a game like that. I hope that things will go very differently this weekend. We’re optimistic and hope that we will end the game with 11 players on the pitch,” said Werner.
Although SC are situated much higher up the table than the Green-Whites and remain on track to qualify for Europe, Werner is looking for his team to pose a challenge this weekend. “Regardless of our opponents, nearly all of our games this season have been tight games. Each of them had moments in which the game could have gone either way,” the 34-year-old said. This weekend, Werder will be looking to take advantage of these positive phases of play in order to pick up a positive result against a strong opponent.
