There were several Werder players in action on international duty at the start of the week. Fabio Chiarodia and Italy secured qualification for the European U19 Championship on Tuesday afternoon (28/3). Mio Backhaus also played in the same competition for Germany, while Niclas Füllkrug was the final SVW player to feature on Tuesday night against Belgium. Ilia Gruev, Romano Schmid and Jiri Pavlenka all represented their nations in EURO 2024 qualifiers on Monday evening (27/3).
Fabio Chiarodia and Italy U19s played Belgium on Tuesday in a European U19 Championship qualifier. The 2-2 draw saw them qualify for this summer’s tournament in Malta. The Werder youngster played the full 90 minutes. Mio Backhaus kept a clean sheet in Germany’s game against Slovenia. However, they already knew before the game that they had no chance of qualifying. The final Werder player to play on international duty was Niclas Füllkrug. He once again started for Germany against Belgium, having scored both goals in the 2-0 win over Peru on Saturday. ‘Fülle’ played 81 minutes and scored a penalty, though Germany lost 3-2 to their neigbours.
The second matchday of the EURO 2024 qualification campaign got underway for SVW players on Monday. Romano Schmid will return back to Bremen with six points after Austria’s 4-1 win over Azerbaijan and a 2-1 victory against Estonia, although the midfielder only came off the bench late on in the second game. Czech Republic also managed to avoid defeat in their opening two games. Jiri Pavelnka started both the 3-1 win against Poland and the goalless draw in Moldova. Both Austria and Czech Republic are top of their respective groups.
Things are looking less positive for Ilia Gruev and Bulgaria. After losing 1-0 to Montenegro on Friday, they were beaten 3-0 by Hungary and therefore sit bottom of Group G.
