There were indescribable celebrations, relief and an electric atmosphere inside the simmering Weser-Stadion in the moments following the final whistle...
There were indescribable celebrations, relief and an electric atmosphere inside the simmering Weser-Stadion in the moments following the final whistle...
There were indescribable celebrations, relief and an electric atmosphere inside the simmering Weser-Stadion in the moments following the final whistle after the Green-Whites claimed a highly-emotional 2-1 victory over Borussia Dortmund with the help of the Bremen fans on the last matchday before the winter break.
"Unbelievable, how we played going forward," raved Zlatko Junuzovic. Duly deserved, as "we played terrific, stood compact and tore it up." Bremen were not yet free from all relegation concerns, but deserved a conciliatory end to a noticeably tricky first half of the campaign. The roots to these pioneering glimmers of hope date back to 26th October - the day, when Viktor Skripnik, along with his training team of Torsten Frings, Florian Kohfeldt and Christian Vander, led Werder training for the first time.
"I didn't consider it, I said yes immediately. I've been here 18 years and give my all for the club. My whole heart belongs to Werder Bremen. It's more than a dream for me, to be given the chance to manage my club in the Bundesliga," the Ukrainian enthused upon his appointment. He moved to the Green-Whites from his hometown club of Dnipro Dnipropetrowsk in 1996. The 45-year-old looked back recently in an interview with 11Freunde: "I was a young man in a great country, whose borders you couldn't ignore." Despite that, he rejected an offer from record champions Dynamo Kiev, rather seizing his chance at far-flung Weser for a trial and friendly game against Hansa Rostock.

After eight years as a trusty left-back, he ended his professional career upon clinching the double in 2004, beginning his coaching career at the SVW youth performance centre a little later. Most recently Skripnik was responsible for the U23 side, until he received a rather urgent text message from Thomas Eichin following the Köln loss on a certain October evening. One of the top priorities, which Skripnik visibly tried to instil in his team again as soon as possible: "Creativity can only grow from self-confidence." One of those to feel that was Franco Di Santo, who along with Fin Bartels, not only netted in the comfortable 2-0 victory in the DFB Cup away to third-division side Chemnitzer FC, but also bagged a much-needed brace soon after to help claim all three points in a 2-1 win in Mainz. The luck, which had departed SVW for a long period and had seen them prop up the table, suddenly appeared again.
It was simply a matter of time, we won, it doesn't matter how," Bartels underlined. Everything went against Werder to begin with, creating a cushion after they gifted Mainz the lead early on. Then came the first of the penalties Karius stopped from scorer Di Santo, but the Argentine stabbed home the rebound, going on to score the winning goal after the break with a dream goal from inside the six-yard box.
Not only did Bremen accrue 10 points from their final four home games of 2014, the Green-Whites gave more and more telling indications on the pitch, which represented Viktor Skripnik. "I like to play aggressive and attacking football, like I used to as a player. It often results in heart-attack games for the managers though, but for the spectators it's something else." A rush of adrenaline was sent throughout the Weser-Stadion again and again - like in the 2-0 win over Stuttgart of the 4-0 triumph over Paderborn, from which Junuzovic's superb 30-metre free kick remains in the memory, among others.

However, Werder's poor results away from home prevented them from making a sustainable climb up the table and away from the basement, losing both the northern derby in Hamburg, as well as the first reunion with Thomas Schaaf and his new club Eintracht Frankfurt. The 4-1 loss to Champions League-chasing Borussia Mönchengladbach even saw SVW slip to bottom place in the league. A clear message from Zlatko Junuzovic: "We're deservedly bottom, the table doesn't lie. We now have to turn things around. The positive is that we're not too down at the bottom and the fans are behind us." The Dortmund match in the final BL game before Christmas and the New Year was a perfect representation for the impressive art and manner in which it was done.
"Even when running onto the pitch, we were all fired up. We knew what we had to do and were up for it," Davie Selke said. As top scorer Di Santo had been nursing an ACL injury in his knee since the end of November, the younger talents like himself and Melvyn Lorenzen came to the forefront. Selke was solely responsible for how the game developed against BVB, in which he converted Garcia's cutting pass from 16 metres out into the far corner first of all, before having his share in Fin Bartels' goal to make it 2-0. "We threw everything into it, despite the batteries being almost empty. We played really well and went about our business carefree," said the second goalscorer Bartels. All in all, all the self-doubt has finally and duly been replaced with new-found courage.
