Now Schaaf is receiving plenty of praise from his team after going through perhaps the most difficult season in his career. "He is an old warhorse, has been in the business a long time and that helped us. It didn't matter who tough the situation was, he always remained objective," said Tim Wiese. Clemens Fritz also tipped his cap to his coach, saying: "Thomas Schaaf is an institution in Bremen and we are happy to have taken the path with him. It could have happened that one morning he came into the changing room and told us that he didn't want to continue on. But he wanted to go on with us and we with him."
Those words were definitely welcomed by the coach after the 12th anniversary of his taking over coaching duties. The season was also difficult for him. And now his wish is just a new beginning. "We continually had to deal with setbacks. That's why we're happy that we can put the season behind us in the next couple weeks and hit the button ‘Please re-start' in order to do it better. We saw some great things in the Bundesliga. There was a worthy champion, surprise teams like Hannover and Mainz. But we have to have the chance to internalise this. If we just keep turning and turning, then we can break some things," said Schaaf.