Mateo Pavlovic and Özkan Yildirim made it into Werder's game roster for the first time in a competitive match as head coach Thomas Schaaf nominated the Croatian winter acquisition Pavlovic and the U23 talent Yildirim for the match...
Mateo Pavlovic and Özkan Yildirim made it into Werder's game roster for the first time in a competitive match as head coach Thomas Schaaf nominated the Croatian winter acquisition Pavlovic and the U23 talent Yildirim for the match...
Mateo Pavlovic and Özkan Yildirim made it into Werder's game roster for the first time in a competitive match as head coach Thomas Schaaf nominated the Croatian winter acquisition Pavlovic and the U23 talent Yildirim for the match against Borussia Dortmund on Saturday at 6:30 p.m.
Yildirim, who missed nearly 14 months due to injuries, was happy about his nomination. "I am very happy that it worked out so well and so quickly after such a long injury break. I am looking forward to tomorrow's game. But I am not at my goal yet. After all, I would like to play in the Bundesliga some day," said the 19-year-old after Friday afternoon's training session.
Niclas Füllkrug, meanwhile, will definitely not play as he has complained about knee problems since Thursday's training session. "He had some pain yesterday and will likely not be available for a couple of days," said Schaaf, who in addition to Füllkrug will also not have the services of Marko Arnautovic. The Austrian is suspended for the match against Dortmund due to his fifth yellow card.
SV Werder will be playing their first competitive match of the new year against Dortmund after three victories in four test matches. "The wins from the preparations give us confidence. But test matches are kind of suspect - you never know exactly how things will look in competition. We will not see that until tomorrow evening. I hope that we are able to retain the good impressions from the preparation and match them with a good result," said the Bremen coach.
These 18 players are on the game roster for the second half kick-off against Borussia Dortmund:
Mielitz, Strebinger - Pavlovic, Lukimya, De Bruyne, Fritz, Ekici, Elia, Schmitz, Hunt, Prödl, Junuzovic, Ignjovski, Akpala, Sokratis, Gebre Selassie, Petersen, Yildirim.
