Three days after Easter, things could begin to get a little lonely around the Weser Stadium with Werder’s internationals heading off for a round of friendly games in mid-week. Trainer Thomas Schaaf will have to make do without a total of 14 of his players. A true sign of the quality within the squad, which the coach takes with just the slightest pinch of salt: “It will be pretty empty on the training pitch at the start of the coming week.”
For many national teams, the pre-EURO 2008 period begins in earnest with not much time left to get organised ahead of the tournament which kicks off in June. Per Mertesacker and Clemens Fritz have been selected for the German side which will travel to Basel to take on tournament co-hosts, Switzerland. The other co-hosts from Austria, including young Werder front man Martin Harnik, will play Holland in Vienna whilst at Wembley Stadium in London, two further Green-Whites representatives go head-to-head when Brazil, with Diego, face Markus Rosenberg and his Swedish colleagues.
Rosenberg’s strike partner Hugo Almeida will be in action for Portugal as they travel to Greece and Croatian international Ivan Klasnic has been re-called to his national team for their trip to Scotland. Boubacar Sanogo and the Ivory Coast will have a tough task against Tunisia whilst Dusko Tosic joins his Serbian team mates for their game in the Ukraine. Daniel Jensen has been nominated for the Danish squad ahead of their match against the Czech Republic but the midfielder is unlikely to participate after suffering a groin strain.
In addition, there are a total of five Werder players nominated for youth internationals. Sebastian Boenisch, Mesut Özil and Aaron Hunt are all in the German U21 squad for their U21 European Championship qualifier against Luxembourg in Wiesbaden. The German U20’s will take on Switzerland and the squad includes both Kevin Schindler and Max Kruse who will face Werder reserve team goalkeeper Kevin Fickentscher on the opposing side.