Theodor Gebre Selassie can’t remember the last time Werder faced Delmenhorst. It has been over six years since the Czech came up against the former Kreisliga club in an end of season friendly. The game ended 20-0 in front of 4,000 fans at the Stadion an der Düsternortstraße. Werder and Atlas finally meet again on Saturday – and Gebre Selassie looks set to make his return to action.
Preparations for the first round of the Pokal are still ongoing, however Gebre Selassie is already confident, “We are well-prepared and we will prove this on the weekend.” They recently put in a great showing against Everton, with their passing already seeming much more fluid than in the previous season. Gebre Selassie stresses that only one thing matters against the underdogs from the Oberliga on Saturday 10th August at 20:45 CEST, “it is about reaching the next round.”
Gebre Selassie: “We compensated well”
Despite the fact that he and captain Niklas Moisander are the only two survivors from last season’s backline, the 32 year old is not worried about their defence. The reoccurring injuries to Sebastian Langkamp, Milos Veljkovic and Ludwig Augustinsson, as well as Marco Friedl’s late return to training contributed to a constant reshuffling of the defence. “We compensated well for that and worked well as a unit,” asserts Gebre Selassie.
The 0-0 draw with Everton followed a 4-0 victory over SD Eibar, and a 1-0 win over first-division rivals Köln. Three matches, zero goals conceded. In particular U23s Captain Christian Groß caught his eye. “He has performed very well over pre-season,” said the right back with 209 Bundesliga appearances. Groß has been listed in the squad for one Bundesliga match to date in Hamburger SV’s victory over Freiburg, but failed to make an appearance.
However none of that will matter this Saturday, when they come up against the Oberliga outfit in the wohninvest WESERSTADION. “In our pre-season fixtures we were able to react well to certain situations throughout the game. I am confident that we can bring this into our first competitive fixture,” Gebre Selassie tells WERDER.DE. The Czech certainly won’t be thinking about the 20-0 win of the past.
