A Greek will not always be warmly welcomed in Turkey because of historical reasons. But that was not the case at all Friday afternoon at Werder's training camp. New acquisition Alexandros Tziolis arrived in Belek together with manager Klaus Allofs and was anxiously awaited by a number of media representatives. But the 23-year-old did not have time for even a look in their direction. Hardly at the hotel complex, Tziolis was fitted by kit man Uwe Behrens for the necessary training clothes and headed straight out to the pitch where his team-mates were already beginning to sweat.

Tziolis should help the rest of the season with the feared personnel shortage in the midfield. "That was naturally one of the reasons why we brought him in right away. In this position we have a couple of injuries about which we don't know when and in what capacity the players will be available," said coach Thomas Schaaf.

Alexandros Tziolis was fully pushed in his first training session for him to get a taste of what he can expect in the coming days. The midfielder admits he is motivated by the coach's praise: "I have said a number of times in the past couple of days that Werder is a big club. And after everything I have seen in the first couple hours I can only confirm that to the fullest." To top off his full throttle start, Tziolis would most like to play on Saturday against Bursaspor (5:30 p.m. Bremen time / live on WERDER.TV). But the coach was non-committal as usual.