It was as if they wanted to make good on the promises they had made during the training camp. In Schruns the front men made it clear that they saw no reason for the club to go in desperate search of another striker and in the first competitive game of the season, it was the front men who really impressed. Eight of Werder’s nine goals were scored by Markus Rosenberg, Hugo Almeida and Boubacar Sanogo. The scoring on the day was completed by midfielder Jurica Vranjes.
It was further fuel for the argument that the club can keep an eye out for a further striker but are under absolutely no pressure: “I can’t possibly criticise out strikers,” commented general manager Klaus Allofs a couple of days ago – and on Saturday they proved him right.
Most impressive of all was Markus Rosenberg, who notched up four goals. After the game the Swede remarked confidently: “We certainly didn’t need a new striker today. It was a very good first competitive game for us going forward. The combination with my north European colleague Daniel Jensen worked particularly well and playing together with Hugo and Bouba is a lot of fun.” The EURO 2008 participant made it very clear that despite the team having scored nine goals, there is plenty of room for improvement: “We will need to play more quickly in the Bundesliga but we will work on that over the next few days. If we play in Bielefeld next week the way we did in the first 20 minutes here, then we will be successful.”