I just wanted to start the thread. No time for any real comments. All I have to say is I'll actually take another draw, but I also think if we don't win, as one of the guys said on the interactive board, we might be 'up shit creek without a paddle.' Here is a story on the match in English from the Official BVB Website. Here are the projected lineups from the Official BVB Website.
Our lineup is as it is shown in the initial message except that Kringe is playing on the left in midfield, Tinga on the right and Sahin is not in the lineup.
Halftime score is 0-0. What scares me about this is that I don't know if we can play much better whereas Bremen hasn't shown much of their potential yet.
64th minute: We lead 1-0. Valdez, who was denied a penalty on a play minutes earlier that I think he should have gotten, battled Boesnich for a ball in the Werder area. Both men were tugging, but then Boesnich shoved Valdez, Valdez went down and referee Knut Kircher pointed to the spot. Frei then cooly converted to give us the lead. Frei may have converted, but the credit has to go to Valdez. Valdez has worked his ass off EFFECTIVELY today for a change. It is now the 78th minute, still 1-0 for us.
86th minute: Schmelzer for Dede Personally, I think he should have taken Kehl out. Kehl looks tired as hell. And I have to say Dede played freakin' well in my opinion today.
I'm happy we got that first win of the second half of the season. My Man of the Match was Nelson Valdez. As I said of him earlier, he finally worked his ass off EFFECTIVELY and was responsible for creating the situation which caused the winning penalty. And as stated, I think he should have had another penalty called minutes before. Other than that, people won't like what I have to say. I think we only won because we caught Bremen after an international match and they were without Frings. Besides Valdez, I don't think any of our offensive players were effective at all. I thought Dede and Owo had good matches out on the wings, but I think central defense duo of Subotic and Santana still looked a bit lost. Santana looked better than in previous matches, but only a couple of good stops from Weidenfeller and bad luck from Bremen's point of view kept us from conceding. To sum it up, I'm happy we finally won a match and definitely happy to beat the team right on our tails. But I am not impressed with our failure to score from the run of play and definitely not impressed with the amount of luck we needed to take the three points against a weakened Werder team. However, I will hope this victory does something to boost the team's effectiveness. If not, well, at least we are three points away from that magic number of 40.........
Congrats to the Borussia. It was like it the past seasons, that each team won one time (we in cup, you yesterday, first match a draw).
Premiere Bundesliga Top 11 For Match Day 25 I'm actually starting to believe Premiere's Top 11 is better than Kicker's. Why? Because usually, on Sunday, I can tell you who is going to be in the Kicker Top 11 on Monday by simply reading who scored goals from what position. Premiere actually puts defenders in their top 11 for playing defense. They reward guys for good performance whether they score goals or not. Here is Premiere's Top 11 from this past weekend. More below the photo. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Premiere Top-11 - 25. Spieltag Sunday, 22 March 2009 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Yes, that is Patrick Owomoyela at right back. I think this is his second selection in three weeks. Yet, I still see some complaining about him. This makes all the complainers easy to ignore. I think with some people, certain players just can't do anything right. Here is what Premiere/Spox had to say about Owo. Patrick Owomoyela (Borussia Dortmund): The former Bremen player isn't far away from his best form. He had the most ball contact (something we would normally associate with Dede in Dortmund) and was the top Dortmund player in one-on-one battles. in German: Patrick Owomoyela (Borussia Dortmund): Der ehemalige Bremer ist nicht mehr weit von seiner Bestform entfernt. Gegen seine Ex-Kollegen hatte er die meisten Ballkontakte und war zweikampfstärkster Dortmunder auf dem Platz. I think Klopp and Zorc did well here......... But I guess now some will say Owomoyela sucks unless he wins back his Germany spot. Yeah, what-the-f#ck-ever........
He can continue to play his heart out for us and that would satisfy me indeed. As far as a return to the NT - no thanks.