Werder Bremen are the Tuttur Cup 2013 champions after a 2-1 victory in the final over VfL Wolfsburg. That gives the Green-Whites the first - if not official - title of the new year. Bremen came...
Werder Bremen are the Tuttur Cup 2013 champions after a 2-1 victory in the final over VfL Wolfsburg. That gives the Green-Whites the first - if not official - title of the new year. Bremen came...
Werder Bremen are the Tuttur Cup 2013 champions after a 2-1 victory in the final over VfL Wolfsburg. That gives the Green-Whites the first - if not official - title of the new year. Bremen came back from a 1-0 deficit to win 2-1 on goals by Marko Arnautovic (73rd) and the substitute Felix Kroos (88th).
Pavlovic starts
Head coach Thomas Schaaf made 11 changes to his starting line-up compared to the 2-0 victory in the semi-final against Trabzonspor, including giving new acquisition Mateo Pavlovic a chance in the starting XI. Both teams showed the strains of the hard training sessions of the past few days and the first 45 minutes of the match lacked in highlights. Niclas Füllkrug missed a good chance with 10 minutes left in the first half to give Werder the lead. Naldo allowed a cross to get to Mehmet Ekici and Füllkrug missed despite plenty of space. The match was even at 0-0 at halftime.

Arnautovic equalizes
Werder displayed more offensive spirit in the second half but the first goal went to Wolfsburg. Thomas Kahlenberg passed to Mateusz Klich, who struck home the 1-0 lead for Wolfsburg in the 64th minute. Marko Arnautovic equalized in the 73rd minute 1-1 on a superb goal.
Kroos scores winner
After chances by Yildirim and Arnautovic, Kroos gave Werder the victory 120 seconds before the final whistle as Pavlovic passed off a corner to the far post where Kroos blasted it in to make it 2-1 in the 88th minute. The 21-year-old Kroos's goal and the first scoring point from Pavlovic decided the game.
"We have not played in this line-up before. It's pretty clear that you cannot really play that well together. So it's important that you play with conviction and do not give up the ball too quickly. We did that better in the second half, and therefore it was a better match. It's nice that we were able to come back from a deficit," said head coach Thomas Schaaf after 90 minutes.
Marko Arnautovic is already looking forward to the Green-Whites' next task: "We want to win every match. That gives us confidence. We still have two matches that we want to win and then we can be successful in the opener against Dortmund."
