On rainy Monday afternoon, more than a dozen Werder players took part in an intensive running exercise around the Bürgerpark in Bremen. The whole squad wasn’t there of course as many have been called up for international duty. They’ll return next week however and until then, the coaching staff will only work with the players who have remained in Bremen.
One advantage of the international break is that the team has time. There’s almost two weeks until the next game and Skripnik wants to use this time to correct the less-than-ideal start to the season. “This week will be somewhat quieter due to the amount of players on international leave. On Friday we have a friendly and next Monday everyone will return - then we’ll be able to prepare more intensively for the home game against Augsburg,” said Skripnik to WERDER.TV.
Skripnik didn’t understate the importance of the first home game of the new season as he described the tie as “a final”. A final on just the second matchday of the new campaign sounds a bit premature but the Werder coach wants to send a message to his team ahead of their encounter with Augsburg: "We have to prepare in the next couple of weeks as if the match were a final."
Captain Clemens Fritz had similar views to the coach. “We have fully focus on preparing for the game. The confidence that we lost in the games against Lotte and Bayern has to be regained through positive training sessions.” He concluded: “We have some things to put right.”
