Barcelona vs Werder Bremen

UPDATE!: I'm so bloody disappointed with the final round of Champions League matches. There's no major disappointments at all! Teams that look that they might cause a major upset in the end didn't upset at all. I was hoping that Werder and CSKA could knock out Barca and Arsenal, or maybe Porto to win over Arsenal, and maybe Benfica to win over Man Utd and knock them out, but in the end, grrr... Just look at the stupid tables, all the first and second seeded teams all got through lor. The only consolation upset would be Celtic through over Benfica, but it's not considered a major upset, like knocking out only of the top teams. Now we have like got all the Spanish and English teams through, and the Italians, freak, we still got four bloody English teams in the game lor.

It'll be tomorrow by the way, just want to get my thoughts in about this. Oh my god, my insides are starting to churn, I'm so nervous. I haven't been so nervous since a very long time. The last time I was this nervous was during this Chelsea vs Barcelona match. And it's pretty weird that I'm nervous over a match which Chelsea is not playing. hehehe~



To those who doesn't know about this, the club which I support only second to Chelsea is this club, Werder Bremen. I fell in love with this club in 2003/4 when I started learning German and surfed though German football websites and it so happened that that year Werder Bremen won a double of the Bundesliga and the Cup competition. Following that year, which sank my commitment to Werder was the €5million purchase of Miroslav Klose. I never looked back. Werder was the team I supported in the Bundesliga although since then they haven't won anything again. hehehe~

Werder is an attacking team. Its strike force it the best out of all Bundesliga team, even Bayern München's goal scores pales in comparison despite them picking up the trophies for the 2004/5 and 2005/6 seasons in the Bundesliga. I admit that in Werder's quest for goal, they often open up gaps in defence, which contributes to them not being able to win as many matches as they'd like to, but as they grow in experience with Champions League matches, and the exposure to teams outside Germany, they have been improving in the defence over the years.

Also, it does help that Werder has a stable of very shuai looking guys, tall, blonde, blue eyed, and are national players. hehehe~ I might be a die hard football fan, but don't forget I'm also a girl.


In goal, Werder usually has Tim Wiese. He's young and lacks big match experiences, hence he has been guilty of fumbling in crucial Champions League matches last season and the season before. Because he has been improving over the past seasons, as with Werder improving in their standings in the Champions League, I think he'll do well for Werder.

Over at the other hand of the goal post, we have Victor Valdes. hehehe~ I've talked about him a couple of times. I love him, he's the only player from that team that I love, well, mainly because he's the only good looking guy. But in terms of football, Valdes remains in queue behind a long slew of other Spanish nationals for goalkeeping, and Barca has been all along quite weak in defence. Hence, comparatively, I won't really say, Barca has the upper hand in goalkeeping.


In defence, along with Naldo, Wome, and Fritz, we have Per Mertesacker, that guy in the above picture. He's a German national, and I used to own a Cola bottle with his picture plastered on it. He's the key in Werder's improving defence. He's also that person who headed in the goal against Chelsea two weeks ago.

He'll be compared against the more experienced Barca team comprising of captain Puyol, which I have to admit, Werder might be a bit lacking in comparison. Puyol is the only Barca footballer whom I respect as a footballer (note, I like Valdes only as a shuaige but not as a footballer). Puyol and Valdes are like the very few remaining Catalans left in the globalising world of Barcelonian football. Personally, I don't see Catalans as Spanish even though they play for the Spanish national team, but maybe it's just me.

In the midfield, we have

Torsten Frings, another German national who shined in the 2006 World Cup and established himself as one of the leading German nationals. He plays a more defensive role in in midfield not unlike Makelele and will be seeing himself up against players like Edmilson from Barca tomorrow, but I have every faith in him to be the better player.


Tim Borowski is another player I really really love, and is almost my most favourite player in the Bundesliga after perhaps Miroslav Klose. Let's first not talk about his super shuai good looks, but he's one tall and strong midfielder who just emerging in this game. Give him another couple more years and he'll be real good. Quite a pity he mostly plays as a substitute in the national games usually coming in for players such as Ballack, Frings and Schweinsteiger.

Other midfielders prospected to be featured tomorrow are Jensen and Diego. Diego is the next Ronaldinho. He plays in his postition, but he's much younger. He's like three days younger than me, so you can see how young he is~ hehehe... Still, the next Ronaldinho is still not as good as the real Ronaldinho, so, cross our fingers for the new generation to kick the butts of the older generation ba... As the old Chinese sayings go, 长江后浪推前浪, and 青出于蓝而胜于蓝.

Werder has an effective strike force that well, I can even say is almost the best in the world. It's not about the individual or summed together quality of the strikers, but the combination, and their effectiveness when working together that really brings out that potent lethal knock out. From the K und K strike force of Miroslav Klose and Ivan Klasnic in the past two seasons, this season's injury to Klasnic has forced Werder to try out to great results the potency of the new emerging strike force that too cannot be reckoned with of the likes of Zidan and (a personal favourite) Aaron Hunt. Forerunning tomorrow would most likely be

Klose and Hunt


Aaron Hunt young and good looking, a pity the picture above doesn't do him justice. See him on the pitch, he's good~ He's not really a full national yet, mostly playing for the U21s, but with his maturing, I see him soon to be together with the likes of his other Werder team mates in the German national team.

Compared to Barca's aging Gudjohnsen and Guily, with the former having left Chelsea for his new team, there is a very obvious age disparity between the two teams. We'll now have to see which will emerge as the winner. I really hope it's Werder~ not just because this would mean victory for the North Germans, but also a kick in the ass for the Catalans. wahaha~

Also, I'd like to talk a bit about this one club man...

Thomas Schaaf, the trainer of Werder Bremen is a through and through one club man who played only for Werder in his playing days, and going through the ladder in coaching Werder, guiding the B youth team, A youth team, the reserves, finally to the full first team. He really worked his way up in the Werder ladder, making him through and through the Werder man. His tactics has also been very impressive, especially the K und K formular last season. Painting him to be the saint, he's one guy with a really good temper, which I think is one trait lacking in many trainers.

For this very once, I'll say, this game matters more to me than the Chelsea match. Chelsea is already through to the next round, and Levski Sofia isn't really a very matchable opponent. If Chelsea loses, it's only because we're preserving our energy for the heavy schedule of football next week. Even if we win, it's not really something that's very impressive since Levski is like the team very one pushes balls into.

Oh well... *cross fingers for the match tomorrow*

PS: This is my 499th post. Watch this space for my little celebration of the 500th post coming up soon. I'm so excited~ 5-0-0 leh... A very big number to me, hope you guys are as excited as I am to see what I have in stall with you for the commemoration of the big 5-0-0 post~ wahahaha~~~