SV Werder celebrated an impressive victory, 4:1 against FC Cologne on the 7th match day of the Bundelisga. In a superiorly contolled game, Werder players got ahead of the game 3:0 through goals of Johan Micoud, Ivan Klasnic, and Paul Stalteri. FC Cologne’s offense player Matthias Scherz kicked a goal that shortly changed the score to 3:1. Angelo Charisteas who came in as a replacement scored the final 4th goal during overtime.

Magical Football casts a 2:0 spell

Werder Bremen presented a remarkable football performance in the RheinEnergie arena. Before a crowd of 33,000 spectators, Head Coach Thomas Schaaf and his team displayed its match dominance from the start.. The Werderaners combined their forces very well and executed a concentrated and well thought-out game plan that left FC Cologne nil chance to build-up their counter-attack. Particularly in midfield, the guests startled the "Billy Goats” early on so that they were driven to make many passing and positioning errors.

Right after the first 4 minutes, the extraordinarily spirited Johan Micoud got the first big goal chance for Werder. After a double pass with Ivan Klasnic, the French kicked from a tight angle but only hit the outer net. But six minutes later this Bremen midfielder received a pass from Fabian Ernst and found himself all alone and free to score a header giving the Green and White the lead. The Colognes had nothing to counter the secured and straightforward Bremen game plan. Playing too nervously, they lost ball possession one after the other to the highly engaged guest from the Weser, thus opening real chances for SV Werder. An example to prove this was the corner shot made by Ailton. FC-Keeper Stefan Wessels tossed the ball out with his fist toward fellow FC Cologne Jörg Heinrich but the ball landed before Frank Buamann who kicked it from 5 meters away but missed the shot directed to the Cologne Keeper (29th). After 4 minutes FC player Dirk Lottner carelessly lost ball possession along the midfield line. Werder’s Valerien Ismail recovered it and quickly set the play to Krisztian Lisztes who was standing at the right sideline, who then directed his moves toward FC Cologne’s penalty area, kicked from an unfavourable shooting position but failed against Wessels. The after-kick was delivered by Ivan Klasnic when he hit the ball but it bounced 16 meters off ground, over the crossbar, missing the goal only by a close margin (33rd).

How beautiful a football game could be played was demonstrated by Bremen players 5 minutes before the whistle blew for halftime. After Johan Micoud had excellently passed the ball to a moving Fabian Ernst, it was passed on by a heel kick to Ivan Klasnic who hit the goal, 2:0.

Wessels Hinders High Victory

The second half displayed Bremen’s dominance even more noticeable. 2 minutes after halftime whistle showed FC Keeper Wessel steering Johan’s Micoud shot from 18 meters over the goal. The first real chance for the Colognes came after 63 minutes when after getting a pass from Christian Springer, Sebastian Helbig shot from 15 meters distance missing the goal of Andreas Reinke only by a centimeter. But after this, there was nothing more to see from FC Colonge’s offense line. It was solely Stefan Wessels who appeared to fight against the looming defeat. At first, Ailton was unsuccessful against the Cologne’s Keeper (65th and 74th) and later on, Angelos Charisteas who came in as a replacement also failed when Wessels gave all his best to turn over 2 brilliant saves. It was the third counterstrike, scored by Paul Stalteri , that rendered him an unfortunate image. After a pass from Valerien Ismael , he missed the ball while coming out of post and the Bremen midfielder shoved it in to score 3:0.

Charisteas sets Punch Line

After the Colognes caught up with one goal, fans of Cologne garnered some hope once more. After FC-player Carsten Cullmann made a chip pass to the Bremer penalty area, Matthias Scherz had a fine header for 3:1. And if Scherz had scored his second chance shortly after, then perhaps it would have become exciting once more. But this time his header missed the Bremer goal by a bare margin.

Angelos Charisteas set the punch line this afternoon. After a goal he shot in the 87th minute was rightly called offside, he used a pass from Fabian Ernst to strike the 4:1 final score during overtime.

With this success the Bremer team moved forward to rank two of the chart. With the same points as Bayer 04 Leverkusen which won 1:0 in Wolfsburg, it trails one rank behind. Heading the list is still VfB Stuttgart which won 3:0 at the Munich "Lions”. After its defeat, 1.FC Cologne remains at bottom rank.

SV Werder Bremen: Reinke - Stalteri, Ismaël, Krstajic, Davala - Ernst, Baumann, Micoud, Lisztes (67. Borowski), - Klasnic (75. Charisteas), Ailton (80. Valdez)

1.FC Cologne: Wessels - Cullmann, Sichone, Heinrich, Dogan - Voigt (72. Cichon), Kringe (42. Helbig), Springer, Lottner - Scherz, Voronin

Goals: 1:0 Micoud (10.), 2:0 Klasnic (40.), 3:0 Stalteri (70.), 3:1

Scherz (79.), 4:1 Charisteas (92.)

Yellow Cards: Stalteri, Baumann (all SV Werder) - Cullmann, Dogan, Sichone (all 1.FC Cologne)

Referee: Dr. Markus Merk (Kaiserslautern)

RheinEnergie Arena: 33.000 Spectators (sold out)