Four years ago, Werder headed off to Milan for a Champions League match. Back then the Green-Whites earned their Champions League participation having done the league and cup double in Germany...
Four years ago, Werder headed off to Milan for a Champions League match. Back then the Green-Whites earned their Champions League participation having done the league and cup double in Germany...
Four years ago, Werder headed off to Milan for a Champions League match. Back then the Green-Whites earned their Champions League participation having done the league and cup double in Germany the previous season. At the time, Thomas Schaaf’s men were considered rank outsiders in a group which included Inter Milan and Valencia. On Tuesday morning the Green-Whites took off for Italy once again, again to face Inter Milan in an away clash, but this time as much less of a complete underdog.
Back then, it was a miserable, rain soaked evening, that Werder chairman Jürgen L- Born: “really wouldn’t like to talk about. I don’t recall that night fondly. After just five minutes we had to deal with a red card for Ismael and a penalty against us.” Klaus Allofs well remembers that night too: “It was a real pity. We were caught out cold and left absolutely dumbfounded for the first quarter hour. After that we actually played quite well and even had a couple of chance to equalise.”
Unfortunately for the Green-Whites, Inter striker Adriano struck to make it 2-0 and put an end to Werder’s hopes of recovery: “That was the Werder of four years ago. This repeated pairing gives us the opportunity to prove that we have developed further in that time. Since then we have qualified for international competition every season and remained consistently among the top clubs in the Bundesliga. You can see from the squad that we are a very different team now. Only three players remain from the last meeting,” added Klaus Allofs. Only two of those were actually involved in Milan, Frank Baumann and Petri Pasanen. The third, Daniel Jensen, was left back in Bremen to watch the game on television due to injury.
