The scene, sadly for Werder Bremen, was all too familiar. After another defeat, their eighth in their last 10 Bundesliga games, their beaten players walked over to applaud their fans who travelled to Augsburg. Among them was Florian Kohfeldt; not, as you might expect, stood on his own in silent reflection, waiting for the axe to fall, but still very much at the heart of his squad, not shying away from the gravity of the situation or from his part in it. “Resigning would mean running away,” he told journalists minutes later, “and I will never run away.”
In parallel Werder’s sporting director Frank Baumann, a player in the 2004 double-winning side and thus a constant reminder of how hopes and dreams have run aground at the Weserstadion, backed his coach, in the same breath as he chided the team for being “not brave enough in possession” after another second-half collapse. “We have full confidence in Florian Kohfeldt,” said Baumann. “We’ll continue to work with him to get out of this situation.”
It’s a rare and intricate situation. Had Timothy Chandler’s stoppage-time equaliser not ruined Uwe Rösler’s Fortuna Düsseldorf debut, Werder would have been in the automatic relegation places, as Weser Kurier’s Jean-Julian Beer wrote on Sunday, Kohfeldt would already be gone at the vast majority of Bundesliga clubs, and most of those don’t have such a glorious relatively recent past. Many at Werder still believe their coach is the man who can carve a sustainable plan, and cling to the precedent of patience reaping just rewards. “Mainz and the young Klopp, for example,” wrote Beer, “as well as Freiburg and Christian Streich. Both clubs took a better road than Hamburg or Stuttgart, who meanwhile switched various coaches in a panic, and lost their identity along the way.”
The belief in Kohfeldt, who promoted an attacking philosophy from the get-go when he was moved up from the under-23s in October 2017, is not an irrational one. Nor is it denying reality to point to Werder’s horrendous injury list , with Theodor Gebre Selassie, Ludwig Augstinsson and long-term absentee Niclas Füllkrug among those missing in Augsburg. The Füllkrug gap was finally filled – after weeks of profligacy in front of goal – as Davie Selke was brought back to the club in a deadline-day deal.
“We’ve got a lot of quality,” insisted the 25-year-old in his presentation on Sunday. “For us, the issue of the second tier won’t be coming up.” Selke will certainly hope not as he aims to – at last – make good on his considerable potential back at the club with which he made his professional debut. Werder have the obligation to make his temporary deal a permanent one for a €15m fee should they stay up in 2020 and 2021. For now it’s far from a given they’ll pass the first milestone, let alone the second.
In Augsburg Selke led the line and acted as chaperone for Nick Woltemade, who doesn’t turn 18 until Valentine’s Day and thus usurped club legend Thomas Schaaf as Werder’s youngest-ever first-teamer. It felt as if their luck might be turning after they took a first-half lead when Selke bundled the ball towards goal and Jeffrey Gouweleeuw’s clearance off the line hit his teammate Tin Jedvaj and went in.
Yet, as Baumann later lamented, the belief to see it out was not there. Augsburg had the extra resources too (saying much about Werder’s current predicament), with their extra pep in attack added by the returning Alfred Finnbogason, who created a winner for Ruben Vargas after Florian Niederlechner equalised. With Union visiting the Weser next Saturday and Werder having won only once at home in the Bundesliga this term – way back in September, and extremely fortunately, against Augsburg – the stakes could not be higher.
Kohfeldt still exudes the belief that he can turn it around. He needs to hope, for his sake, that Baumann keeps his nerve more steadily than their team were able to in the second half in Bavaria.
Talking points
• RB Leipzig are no longer top but begin a big week strangely galvanised after snatching a late point against Borussia Mönchengladbach. Marco Rose’s visitors were as scintillating as the home side were flat in the first half, and could have led by more than the two goals scored by Alessane Pléa and Jonas Hoffman. Instead a mix-up between the reliable Yann Sommer and Denis Zakaria let Patrick Schick pull one back and after Pléa was sent off for two bookings for dissent, a Christopher Nkunku piledriver in the final minute secured the draw ahead of a DfB Pokal last-16 tie with Eintracht Frankfurt and Sunday’s visit to Bayern. “We were better in the second half,” said Julian Nagelsmann, “and we tried everything,” as he expressed more satisfaction with his team than he has in recent weeks.
• Bayern will begin the big game as leaders after an uneven afternoon at Mainz, punctuated by Robert Lewandowski’s 150th Bundesliga goal for the club and more magic from Thomas Müller and Thiago Alcântara, who both scored in a canter of a first half. Hansi Flick gently admonished his team for sleepwalking through the rest of the game, in what he called a “not Bayern-like” display which offered one of the weakest sides in the division hope into the closing stages. David Alaba’s talk of the team’s “hunger” doesn’t bode well for the rest of the league, though. Is it that time of year already?
• Dortmund also took advantage to close the gap and are only three points off the top after a 5-0 win over Union, which also allowed them to draw level with Leipzig’s goal difference, plus-28. Jadon Sancho’s opener saw him become the youngest-ever player to score 25 times in the Bundesliga, while Erling Braut Haaland’s double took his tally for his new club to seven in three games on his first start, after which he commented that his “fitness isn’t quite there yet”, a scary thought for the rest of the league.
• 7 goals
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) February 2, 2020
• 136 minutes
A goal less than *EVERY* 2️⃣0️⃣ minutes in a Dortmund shirt! 😳
Erling Haaland has started his Bundesliga career in ridiculous form! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/WBFL3xE0Ac
• Move of the weekend was probably Moussa Diaby’s nutmeg on Stefan Posch, before slotting in Bayer Leverkusen’s opener at Hoffenheim. Unfortunately for Peter Bosz’s team, who were on a run of three straight wins, it all went south from there as the hosts came back to win 2-1, with Kerem Demirbay’s late red card at his old club capping a bad day, and one on which the top four began to detach itself, with a five-point gap between Gladbach in fourth and Leverkusen in fifth.
• Köln continued their great run, getting over last week’s hammering at Dortmund to grab a fifth win in six in hammering Freiburg 4-0 ahead of next week’s derby at Gladbach (returned hometown hero Mark Uth was outstanding). Wolfsburg stopped their slide by winning 4-2 at Paderborn. While a cameo from Hertha’s shiny new striker Krzysztof Piatek couldn’t break a goalless deadlock against Schalke.
RB Leipzig 2-2 Borussia Mönchengladbach, Augsburg 2-1 Werder Bremen, Borussia Dortmund 5-0 Union Berlin, Fortuna Düsseldorf 1-1 Eintracht Frankfurt, Hoffenheim 2-1 Leverkusen, Mainz 1-3 Bayern Munich, Paderborn 2-4 Wolfsburg, Cologne 4-0 Freiburg, Hertha Berlin 0—0 Schalke
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bayern Munich | 20 | 35 | 42 |
| 2 | RB Leipzig | 20 | 28 | 41 |
| 3 | Borussia Dortmund | 20 | 28 | 39 |
| 4 | Borussia M'gladbach | 20 | 15 | 39 |
| 5 | Bayer Leverkusen | 20 | 7 | 34 |
| 6 | Schalke 04 | 20 | 5 | 34 |
| 7 | Hoffenheim | 20 | 0 | 33 |
| 8 | Freiburg | 20 | -1 | 29 |
| 9 | Wolfsburg | 20 | -1 | 27 |
| 10 | Augsburg | 20 | -6 | 26 |
| 11 | Eintracht Frankfurt | 20 | 1 | 25 |
| 12 | Union Berlin | 20 | -9 | 23 |
| 13 | Hertha Berlin | 20 | -10 | 23 |
| 14 | Cologne | 20 | -11 | 23 |
| 15 | Mainz | 20 | -19 | 18 |
| 16 | Werder Bremen | 20 | -21 | 17 |
| 17 | Fortuna Dusseldorf | 20 | -22 | 16 |
| 18 | Paderborn | 20 | -19 | 15 |
