Without bells and whistles but with passion and individual class, Werder Bremen managed a 2:0 win against bottom of the table Energie Cottbus on match day fourteen.
Without bells and whistles but with passion and individual class, Werder Bremen managed a 2:0 win against bottom of the table Energie Cottbus on match day fourteen.
Without bells and whistles but with passion and individual class, Werder Bremen managed a 2:0 win against bottom of the table Energie Cottbus on match day fourteen. The win wasn’t the only happy news of the day. Striker Ivan Klasnic made his Bundesliga comeback having been forced out of football for a year after two kidney operations. It was two other Green-Whites who got the goals though with Diego hammering home from the penalty spot (63’) after a foul on Markus Rosenberg and then a late strike by John Jairo Mosquera to mark up his first goal in the Bundesliga (83’).
First chance for Klasnic
Ivan Klasnic’s Bundesliga return was made possible by the personnel problems that Werder are having up front with Hugo Almeida out injured and Boubacar Sanogo under club suspension after an incident in training with Brazilian Carlos Alberto. Ironically, Klasnic was making his comeback against the side which he last scored against in the Bundesliga on 4th November 2006. Aside from the Croatian, captain Frank Baumann was back in the starting eleven in place of Leon Andreasen who was forced out with an ankle injury.
It was Klasnic with the first opening of the game as he rose to meet a Daniel Jensen corner but was denied by Energie keeper Gerhard Tremmel (5’). The early phases of the game, at a sparsely filled ‘Stadion der Freundschaft’. Cottbus were again very wary and packed the defence whilst prowling in wait of the opportunity to attack on the counter. Werder had the bulk of the possession but were lacking in ideas to break down the stout Cottbus defence.
Werder’s best chance of the first period was created from a set piece. Vragel da Silva took down Ivan Klasnic and from the resulting free-kick, Naldo hammered the ball off the crossbar from 17 meters out (32’). In the 43rd minute, Cottbus’ Daniel Ziebig was equally denied by the width of the crossbar and the sides went into the half time break deadlocked.
Cottbus cursed by off-side decision
The half time deadlock was made possible also by the whistle of the referee who waved away a Cottbus goal for what was a dubious off-side decision at the very best. The ball fell to Stiven Rivic from an Ervin Skela free-kick and Tim Wiese was only able to parry the ball as far as Vragel da Silva who hammered home but the referee’s assistant on the line had his flag raised for off-side although on closer inspection, the Cottbus man appeared to be level with Per Mertesacker.
There were some personnel changes made at the break but little changed as far as the flow of play was concerned. The Green-Whites remained in control, with 64% of possession but there were no real chances to speak of other than an incident in the 54th minute when Stanislav Angelov cleared a Mertesacker header off the goal line from behind the already beaten keeper.
Diego on the spot
It took an hour but eventually the game got rolling into life. Firstly Skela wasted a good chance from a free-kick and almost immediately, at the other end, a penalty was awarded to the visitors. Mario Cvitanovic grappled at Markus Rosenberg ad the Swede went down under the challenge – the spot kick was the only plausible decision for the referee. Diego stepped up to take the spot kick and hammered high into the top left corner to make it 0:1 in the Green-Whites favour (63’). Shortly afterwards, Ivan Klasnic’s comeback came to an end after a determined effort as the striker made way for Austrian international Martin Harnik.
’Mosqui’ marks his first
The home side made a valid effort to rescue a point having fallen behind but the few chances they had were impressively denied by an in form and highly concentrated Tim Wiese. The final touch to another good day was put on by substitute John Jairo Mosquera who broke down the left and swung the ball goalwards. The Cottbus keeper had taken a step out to gather the cross but was caught wrong footed and could only watch on as the ball eluded him and found the back of the net to make the final score 2:0.
It was the seventh success in the last nine Bundesliga games for the Green-Whites who keep the pressure on leaders Bayern Munich ( who beat VfL Wolfsburg 2:1) and sit in second place, just one point off the top spot.#
Johnnie Muldoon
FC Energie Cottbus - Werder Bremen 0:2
FC Energie Cottbus: Tremmel - da Silva, Mitreski, Cvitanovic, Ziebig - Rost - Angelov, Skela - Rivic (67. Aloneftis), Sörensen - Kioyo (58. Rangelov)
Werder Bremen: Wiese - Fritz, Mertesacker, Naldo, Pasanen - Baumann - Jensen, Borowski (80. Vranjes) - Diego - Rosenberg (76. Mosquera), Klasnic (64. Harnik); on the bench: Pellatz, Tosic, Schindler
Goals: 0:1 (63., Foulelfmeter) Diego, 0:2 (83.) Mosquera
Referee: Gräfe (Berlin)
Attendance: Stadion der Freundschaft - 14.586
Yellow cards: Cvitanovic - Mertesacker, Wiese, Rosenberg
