You can only achieve great things if you set the bar high. In this vein, Werder have set themselves the goal of reaching European football’s top table. “We want to play in Europe. That’s our goal for this season,” said Frank Baumann ahead of the Bundesliga kick-off this weekend. “It’s an ambitious goal, but it’s not completely unrealistic. In the sentence ‘we want to play in Europe’, the will is there, but it’s not a must,” explained the sporting director.
For head coach Florian Kohfeldt, it was important to decide on a team goal for the season, after several seasons of simply trying just to avoid relegation. Frank Baumann agrees: “It’s better for everyone to strive for something together than just settle for something.” For the Werder boss, the ambitious goal of qualifying for Europe is something that will provide motivation right until the final game of the season.
“We know that we’ll need to perform consistently throughout the season to qualify for Europe,” said Philipp Bargfrede, who is in favour of setting the ambitious goal: “I think that you need to set ambitious goals in order to achieve them.” With the players, it’s always been their goal to qualify for Europe, and now they have the belief that they can achieve this target. “We’re capable,” said Bargfrede. “We have the quality,” added Kohfeldt: “It’s dangerous to set goals that are too ambitious, because you’re immediately setting yourself up for failure. We think this goal is realistic.”
It’s clear that this is an ambitious goal for the season that will be hard to achieve. “Normally, there are six or seven teams who have more means or budget available and they make up the European places,” said Frank Baumann. The Werder legend, who spent five seasons in the Champions League with the club, added: “We want to be ready if one of them slips up.”
