Whoever thinks that Werder will confront VfB Stuttgart on Saturday merely to gain 3 points or simply to defend its top rank title or just to crush that all-time defense record of Stuttgart he’s mistaken. It’s because the top game against the Stuttgart team could hoist Werder to the Green and White Hall-of-Fame.
Whoever thinks that Werder will confront VfB Stuttgart on Saturday merely to gain 3 points or simply to defend its top rank title or just to crush that all-time defense record of Stuttgart he’s mistaken. It’s because the top game against the Stuttgart team could hoist Werder to the Green and White Hall-of-Fame. With a victory Baumann, Ernst and company would have performed the best start of a Bundesliga season ever.
Werder's team captain Frank Baumann was surprised of the chance to be a part of an episode of Werder's history book: "That’s new to me. I’m not that familiar with Werder's statistics. But a record would be a nice thing. Moreover it would mean a gain 3 points and a greater gap between rank 1 and rank 6."
The best record of a season start has been season 1987/88 when coach
Otto Rehhagel together with players such as Reck, Riedle, Schaaf, and company won 4:0 against Borussia Dortmund on the 8th match day. A look back on this victory show them leading the league with 6 wins and 2 draws (20 points based on the current 3-point rule). But this series ended on the 9th match day when Werder lost 1:2 against Bayern.
Exactly with this defeat is now the chance to break the old-time record. After nine matches Werder could carry out 7 wins, 1 draw and 1 defeat (22 points) for the very first time. Angelos Charisteas is especially motivated to crack the record. "This is very good. I really have to do my share with scoring some goals so I can talk about it with Otto Rehhagel when I meet him at next national match. Surely he had worked hard for it. But we could do better this year. It is a big chance for Thomas Schaaf to attain this record", "Harry" said proudly.
A helping-hand on board is the experience of goalkeeper Andreas Reinke. The 34-year old player is delighted about this statistic: "This record would be wonderful. I’ve only started this good only once - when I was with Kaiserslautern. After that we became champion." Indeed in 1997/98 Kaiserslautern accomplished this feat to have 7 wins,1draw , and 1defeat. Incidentally that defeat was brought to the Red Devils by none other than SV Werder.
