Successful cup dress rehearsal - 2-1 win over Odense

Werder Bremen continued their strong form in the final test match before the German DFB Cup match against Preußen Münster on Sunday 19 August 2012 with a 2-1 victory over Odense BK. Philipp Bargfrede gave the Green-Whites the lead against the Danish top flight side with a dream goal. After a number of substitutions, Florian Trinks made it 2-0. The Danes came back in the final stages and pulled a goal back to make it 2-1 - the final result.

Head coach Thomas Schaaf made a number of changes to his starting line-up with just Elia, Schmitz and Fritz returning to the first XI at Egsfield Ground in Horne as opposed to against Aston Villa. Due to the large number of players missing due to international duty, Bargfrede and Nils Petersen were given the chance to gain playing time. Also starting the game were Denni Avdic, who was in front of the 4-1-4-1 formation, as well as Wolf, Lukimya, Kroos, Ekici and Trinks.

Strong begin with dream goal from Bargfrede

In front of 2,088 spectators, including about 50 Werder fans, the Green-Whites started the match applying a lot of pressure, keeping the Danes in their own half and going ahead in the 19th minute through Bargfrede. The 1-0 lead was also the half-time score. Trinks increased the Werder lead to 2-0 in the 52nd minute.

Bremen let up in the second half and the match lost its crispness. The game finally became exciting again at the end as the Danes began to create more chances - also due to two more substitutions (Rehfeldt and M. Wegner for Trinks and Petersen). And after three chances within 10 minutes, N'Koum finally got his team on the scoreboard to make it 2-1 after 84 minutes.