Champions league

Werder reached thanks to the 2nd place in the bundesliga season 07/08 direct participation in the CL. We can just stressless wait for the draw on 28. august and the competitors in the group stage. Teams like Barca, Liverpool or Schalke have to pass out the 3rd qualifying round. Well already in the 2nd qualifying round, there is a first victim, which nobody expected:Glasgow Rangers just have lost their home match against Lithuanian champion from Kaunas with 1:2 and after 0:0 in the first match, they are out of all european cups.

Let see if tommorow brings some unexpected results.

 

And we lost against them in Uefa last year

 

Ironic, isn't it?
The second qualifying round is a bitter one for the losers, since they are not even qualifying for the UEFA Cup. And as we have seen, that can happen to quite famous clubs.

As for today... Anderlecht vs BATE might be the game where another clear favorite fails to advance to the next round.
Göteborg vs Basel and Beitar vs Wisla might be interesting, too.
The rest of the games should be more or less a straightforward win for the favorite team.

Personally I would like to see TamU achieve a miracle at Bratislava, but I suppose it's not going to happen.

 

Hmm, Artmedia Bratislava and miracles, it actually goes together quite well.Remember two years ago, when they lost in the 3rd qualifying round in Celtic park 4:1 and then won the home match 5:0:eek:But I don't think that something similar could happen to Tampere today, we will see...

 

Especially since Tampere is not in as a good shape as in the past two years... struggling after more than half of the season in the middle of the table somewhere - they're not such a powerful team as last year anymore, when they where beating Levski Sofia in the second qualifying round and gained a draw vs Bordeaux in the UEFA-Cup...

 

And the waiting is over, now we know the competitors of Werder in the group stage of CL:Inter Milan, Panathinaikos Athens and Anorthosis Famagusta:eek:

I am a bit dissapointed, I was looking forward for Liverpool, ManU or Arsenal, but we have to wait, we'll meet them in another round

I think that under usual conditions, we should be able to finish the group on the first or second spots.What do you think about our chances?

 

Actually, I am quite happy with the group. Werder really has the chance to get into the round of sixteen and I hope they will make it there this time and do not underestimate Athens or Famagusta... Getting 1st or 2nd in the group would help Werder to further improve its international standing & earn them some extra money... I definitely prefer this to a difficult group with ManU & Co. in which Werder might play brilliantly and still end up 3rd or worse as was the case 2 years ago... At the end of the day, no one cares whether the group was easy or difficult - the important thing is to get as far as possible and an easier group helps a lot...

 

@ Opalo

I totally agreed with you. Who cares whether a group is attractive or not , as long you make it into the next round and cash in the money - which is this year even more attractive after the early exit of Schalke04 , resulting in a proportionally higher share of the TV money for Werder.

:svw_schal::applaus:

 

Finally a little luck on our side a the group stage draw. It seems we have a good chance of going through and this will be perfect. It's true that the teams are not the most appealing but we must do our job and win the necessary points to advance.

For me the draw means i can't see Werder live this year in CL. It was ok the match at Inter and i was ready to book a cheap flight there but when the order of matches was announce i was stunned: Werder plays at Milano on 1st October and at that point I'll be in Munchen, visiting my brother. It was the only match day when I'm not able to travel. The only good news is that I have a ticket at Stuttgart for 4 or 5 October.

 

Greetings Werder fans. I am an Anorthosis Famagusta supporter and I would like to have a chat with you guys over our upcoming game. As you know, this is a historical game for us, being our first Champions League game ever! You can't imagine how proud we are for achieving something that seemed impossible for a Cypriot team like ours. It is also a great honor to play against the great Werder Bremen, a Bundesliga giant. Thank you for your hospitality and I would also like to invite you to our forum (there's an English section there as well) at this link:

http://www.anofc.com/maxhtecvoice/index.php

You're welcome to register and chat with us.

As for our game, of course we are the underdogs, but we have a good team with quality players and most importantly, a Great coach, Timour Ketsbaia. We will just enjoy our football and hope for a good result. Looking forward to your views.

 

Hi Idlewild!
It´s great that you joined our Forum.It´s always nice to talk to other fans.I think it will be an interesting match on tuesday.Let´s see what happens in our lovely Weserstadion.Do you know how many Famagusta supporters will come to Bremen to watch the game?I hope they´ll have a good time here,even if their team won´t win (you know I have to say so )But you never know,maybe we´ll see a surprise.I hope we´ll see a great game with many goals.
Greets from Germany,Eiske

P.S.I managed to register in your forum,but could you post the link to the english part of the forum-all those greek signs make my head spin

 

I think this is the english thread:
http://www.anofc.com/maxhtecvoice/showthread.php?t=28638

Idlewild welcome to the forum. I hope you'll save the Werder card you received like a nice present from our team. I hope this is the only thing we'll give you. FOr us the 3 points in two days time are vital but in football all is possible. If we play like we did yesterday then we can win it easy.

Anyhow, congratulations for qualifying to the group phase. Wining in the last round against a greek team i think made it even sweater.

 

Viele Dank guys! Doctor girl, the above link by waterboyro is correct. If you need anything from our forum pls just contact our admin, or you can even ask me here and I will try to help you out. I think that around 600 supporters will be at the Weserstadion. I would be there too, but I spend all my "urlaub" for Wien and Athens (not to mention the travel costs and everything ). So, for the group stages I chose to go to San Siro for the game vs Inter.

waterboyro

Thank you for the congratulations, I repeat, you guys can't imagine what it means to us to play in the Champions League Group stage. It's a dream come true! Until now, our greatest moment was the disqualification of the Turkish side Trabzonspor in the CL 2nd qualifying stage in 2005. This was a very special moment for us, having in mind the political situation in Cyprus n' everything (almost half the island occupied by Turkish army and our team being a refugee team coming from now occupied city Famagusta and temporarily guests in Larnaca). As for our advance over Olympiakos, yes it was very sweet, especially after the behavior of their supporters and the official club against our team and supporters.

So, as Ketsbaia stated after the Olympiakos-Anorthosis game, "for us it is like we won the Champions League title itself". However, we will not play in a celebrating mode at the Group stages. Werder is by far a better team, but as the cliche goes, "it's football...", especially when you're a disciplined and organized team.

 

Congratulations Idlewild. You got a lucky draw today but that's life. I just hope next time we play our strikers will have more chance and also you'll play more offensive. It's a pain in the ass to play against a team that defends like you did but as i said that's football ... congratulations.

 

I think we would not have scored today even if the game had taken three hours or more... But, at least, we did not lose which is better than nothing. The longer the game took the more worried I was that Famagusta might score because of some silly Werder mistake... But now there are 5 CL games left and I really hope Werder will improve over time...

 

We must improve to have at least 7 CL games left this season. If we shoot like we did today then we can say the matches from the group phase are enough.

 

Come on guys, you have to be fair. You can´t expect Anorthosis to come at the Weserstadion at its first appearance in a Champions League game and play offensively against Werder Bremen... Even bigger clubs can´t do that. I think we did pretty well last night, in terms that we played a very disciplined and organised game, as we should. Ketsbayia was very prepared for Werder, thus he set up the team accordingly. We have a decent team and we use tactics to our benefit. Tactic is the weaker side´s weapon... Nevertheless, we created our own chances as well (i.e. Paulo Costa, Hawar, Dellas), while being able to confront Werder´s attacks in most cases. Yes we were lucky as well, but this is not something unexpected. We are the underdogs and we need luck besides effort to get results. It´s football exactly. Anyway, it is still the just first matchday. We have a long road ahead and at least it is good that we as well will be a decent opponent who are out there to get something and not just to have "fun".

 

Well, here we go! 1 hour from gametime. Line up:
---------------------Wiese----------------------
Proedl------Mertesacker------Naldo------Pasanen
--------------------Baumann--------------------
------------Frings--------------Ozil-------------
----------------------Diego---------------------
----------Rosenberg------------Pizarro-----------
Milan line up:
-------------------Julio Cesar-------------------
---Maicon----Cordoba----Materazzi----Zanetti---
----Stankovic-------Cambiasso------Muntari-----
-----------Balotelli----------Adriano-------------
------------------Ibrahimovic--------------------
Some line up errors...it's halftime Wer 0 v 1 Milan and a good match except the defense is still making mistakes. Baumann took a yellow card at 21:00. Maicon converts a Bremen defensive error while trying to play the trap. Pizza, Rosie and Ozil had chances right at the end of the half - good! Milan will continue to play a counter attack style of play, waiting for Werder to fall on thier sword.

62 minutes...PIZZA!PIZZA!PIZZA! GGGGGGGGOAL!!!!

 

It was a nerve wracking match but I think bottom line we deserved the point.
Let's not think about what would have happened if Pizzaro were to score in the last minute of injury time :eek:

And here are the really, really good news :

I got my hands on a cheap return ticket to Athens and looking forward to support mighty Werder on
22nd Oct away !!! :applaus::svw_schal:

 

Good match against Inter. The problem is that we always perform well against big teams but we have difficulties against smaller ones, so for us the next games (against Pana and Famagusta) are very important.