Werder II starts with a promising young squad into the new Regionalliga season. Next season is gonna be different because they need to be among the top 10 plus they need to be among the top 4 2nd teams of pro teams in order to be able to join the new 3rd Bundesliga. Werder was vital in negotiating the agreement that the 2nd teams of pro teams can also join the new professional league. This is the team for the upcoming season (age and and nationality if not german in brackets): goal: Nico Pellatz (21) Michael Jürgen (33) Kevin Fickentscher (19, spanish/swiss) defenders: Finn Holsing (23) Alperslam Erdem (18) Florian Mohr (22) Toni Gänge (19) Sandro Stallbaum (25) Alexander Hessel (19) Marin Mandic (19, bosnian) Norman Theuerkauf (20) Robert Lohmeier (19) Daniel Halke (20) Dominik Schmidt (20) midfielders. Dominic Peitz (22) Max Kruse (19) Kevin Artmann (21) Amaury Bischoff (20, french) Julian Grundt (19) Thomas Johrden (20) Francis Banecki (22) forwards: Martin Harnik (20, austrian/german) Marc Heider (21, american/german) Kenny Schmidt (20) Frank Löning (25) Kevin Schindler (19) Patrick Bärje (21) Mirko Jankovski (19)
thoughts about some of the players: Patrick Bärje used to be the biggest prospect out of the Werder youth academy until he broke his leg. Before that he played for all german youth national teams. Right now he's slowly adjusting to the level of play again and I haven't given up hope yet that he might make it to the Bundesliga squad. Schindler and Harnik will probably switch between Bundesliga and Regionalliga due to Almeida, Hunt and Klasnic being injured. Andreas Granskov-Hansen (18, danish) and Alexander Neumann (17) might move up from the U19 if there is a need for forwards. Both are playing in the youth national teams of their respective countries. Theuerkauf is very talented and for his age suprisingly calm on the ball and he might be an option for left fullback for the Bundesliga (especially with Womé being out for a while and Schulz wanting to leave Werder). His first replacement is Erdem who is very talented as well. Schaaf seems to be a big fan of Alexander Hessel since he played a lot for the first team during the preseason. But the reason for that is of course the numerous injuries of our central defenders. But Schaaf chose him instead of Mohr or Banecki.
German U-18 Pascal Testroet joins the Werder reserve this summer as a free transfer. The 17 years old striker plays currently for Schalke 04 in the U19-Bundesliga and scored 14 goals in 16 matches and for the Schalke reserve in the Oberliga (4th league) 1 goal in 1 match. According to the newspaper Reviersport Schalkes U19 coach Elgert is very angry about the transfer and doesn´t want to let him play the rest of the season. That would be very sad. Elbert don´t be an idiot, take it like a sportsman. Schaaf didn´t even put Klose or this season Borowski on the bench although they deserve(d) it for joining the evil empire.