New (Young) Boys
By: Brian | July 3rd, 2008Werder officially began preseason training today (163 minutes ago to be exact). A few new faces in town, a few are off to other towns.
In an obvious attempt to corner the market on tall 19 year olds, Werder have gone and signed two in the last couple of days. Defender Niklas Anderson comes from Rot-Weiss Essen (former home of Özil as well) and has been capped for the German U20s. Last season was his first as a professional and ended up playing in 26 matches. He worked his way into the starting lineup around Matchday 5 and stayed there most of the year. RWE went with just three in the back most of the time and Anderson played on the outside on the left. Even when they went to four in the back, he stayed oout there. Went the full 90 in RWE’s 4-0 thrashing of the Werder reserves, which couldn’t have hurt his profile. He’ll now find himself still in the Regionalliga Nord, but in different colors on a better squad. Definitely one for the future.
One for the much nearer future is Said Huseinovic. Werder signed the young Bosnian-Herzegovinian from FK Sloboda (for either half a million or a full million Euros, depending on the source) on Tuesday. Luckily, the Werder Offside has a contact in Tuzla and was able to speak with him last night. The report is that the kid can play. Also in his first full professional season (well, top flight anyway), he played in 25 matches, scoring 13 goals and leading the club in assists. He leaves the club with 21 goals in 47 matches total. And Allofs and Schaaf like what they see:
“Said is fast, a good dribbler and very mobile. In signing him, we have further strengthened our squad with an interesting type of player, who can open up new opportunities for us if he works to his strengths. We will have to be patient with him though, we can’t expect him to work wonders immediately.”
“Said caught the attention of our scouts as a light footed and straight forward attacking player. He will make his way with us and we are looking forward to having him here.”
Sounds like an out an out striker and it’ll be interesting to see where he ends up and how much playing time he’ll see. In the first team, he’s got Almeida, Sanogo, and Rosenberg already ahead of him. Werder’s got a few more transactions to make in the coming months and I have to believe that one of those will be a striker (Milan Baros?). Throw in versatile attacking players like Harnik and Hunt, and looks like Huseinovic may find his way into more reserve matches than the senior team. This is not a bad thing by any means. The kid could use some seasoning and although I’ve never laid eyes on a minute of the kind of football they play in the Premijer Liga BiH, I can imagine the speed and skill to the BL would take some getting used to.
An old man by comparison, 20 year old forward Kevin Schindler is off to Rostock on a one year loan deal. This is a great move for Schindler, perfect in fact. The last few years have seen him not quite good enough to feature for the senior team, but needing a bigger challenge than the Regionalliga was given him with the reserves. He’ll be playing for a strong BL2 club against better competition than, say Lübeck.
So what happens to these Werder youngsters when they don’t eventually get the playing time they think they deserve? Well, they leave of course. To Arsenal specifically. At least in the case of Amaury Bischoff. After three years at Werder, Bischoff all but waiting for the ink to dry on a move to the Gunners. Bremen wanted to keep him, but he is 1) young and 2) French-born, making it impossible to escape the clutches of Arsene Wenger.
Category: Team News
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Comments | Add your comment
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I was of the opinion that Bischoff’s talent had sort of plateaued, much like Tijani Bellaid of Inter or Willy Aubemyang of Ac Milan, all who left France at ridiculously young ages.
Posted from
United States
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werder always gives youngs some opptunities if he is good enough,like hanik and so on.but bischoff never got any,so i think he must be under the line of being to the senior team
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China -
Can’t wait to see the first glimps of Said. It might take a while, but these type of signings are always good for anticipation:)
Now that Wome is off, who takes his spot on a perm basis?
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United States -
Re: Wome
Luckily left back is one of the deepest positions in Bremen. The top two choices right now are Sebastian Boenisch and Dusko Tosic. Personally, I would give the edge to Boenisch right now. He was impressive in his few appearances laste season, especially given that he was acquired at the very end of the winter transfer window and was injured. He is extremely aggressive going forward, which will be embraced. Still young (21), but will be very, very good.
Tosic will be a nice, stable fill in.
The wild card is Petri Pasanen. He played there a lot last season out of necessity, but is right footed. Doesn’t contriute a whole lot to the attack, but is very solid and rarely makes mistakes.
Also, I believe Anderson is a left back and I suppose Proedl could even play there.
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United States -
I never loved Panasen in that role. I feel the opposite that he provided no cover defensively. I always felt he left Per and Naldo exposed down the flanks way too often.
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United States -
I always felt that if anyone is leaving the backline exposed, it’s Naldo himself, with his cavaliering forays (and subsequent turnovers) into the offensive third. Fritz was guilty of this occasionally as well.
But we’re definitely in agreement that this is a defense that gets exposed waaaaay too much.
Posted from
United States -
Definitely agreed.
Posted from
United States
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