The four returnees didn’t really seem fresh. Visibly tired, Mats Hummels, Niclas Füllkrug, Julian Brandt and Niklas Süle got off the “Bombadier Global 6000” business jet from Philadelphia that had been chartered especially for them at Dortmund Airport.
The much-noticed trip of the BVB top performers immediately after the DFB-Elf’s US tour with tests against the USA (3:1) and Mexico (2:2) is intended to be one for the fourth-place team in the Bundesliga on Friday (8.30 p.m./DAZN). Help Bremen win over Werder. Coach Edin Terzic believes the high costs of allegedly almost 100,000 euros are justified: “It’s a challenge if the game takes place on Friday evening. But everyone has signaled that they are ready to play.”
The return campaign was preceded by weeks of discussion about the scheduling of the Bundesliga game. The concern that the regeneration period would be too short for the national soccer players, who would normally only have returned from the USA with the rest of the DFB team a day later, prompted Dortmund to take this step. Defense chief Hummels viewed this as a “highly professional measure” and sports director Sebastian Kehl as the “best solution”. Bremen’s professional football director Clemens Fritz also expressed his understanding: “I don’t find it objectionable that, given the large number of players, you as a club are thinking about how the best possible preparation can take place under these circumstances.”
Special game for Füllkrug
Hummels and Brandt trained with the team again shortly after their return on Wednesday, and Füllkrug and Süle, who were used against Mexico, joined on Thursday. For Füllkrug, the game is special not only because of the unusual history. Finally, the 30-year-old meets his former club, which he left at the end of the transfer deadline in the summer. After two goals for the DFB team in the games against the USA and Mexico, he is brimming with self-confidence. This is what Füllkrug’s statement in “Kicker” about his new club’s return campaign suggests: “I think it’s great that BVB is doing this. Everyone knows that we four national players play a certain role at BVB and are doing a pretty good job there. “
It’s not just national coach Julian Nagelsmann who is convinced of the goalscorer’s qualities. Terzic also went into raptures. “He has helped us a lot in his last few appearances. He is becoming more and more integrated into our game.” The BVB coach hopes that Füllkrug’s positive development will continue in the upcoming, trend-setting deadline hunt: “It’s an extraordinary situation for him when he has seven games to play in three weeks. That’s something he gets out of it I didn’t know the past like that.”
With reference to the tight program, BVB rejected the offer to move the game to Sunday. After all, the duel is with the recently weak table 14th. from Bremen the start of three English weeks in a row. In addition to the two Champions League games against Newcastle, there are the difficult Bundesliga games against Frankfurt, FC Bayern and Stuttgart as well as the cup game against Hoffenheim. This should show how stable the away trend really is with four recent wins.
Moukoko is missing injured
After all, Terzic can currently rely on almost his best line-up. Only Youssoufa Moukoko returned to Dortmund injured after his impressive hat-trick for the German U21s in the European Championship qualifier in Bulgaria, but is expected to return to training next week.
The Bremen team was only marginally interested in possible jet lag problems for the BVB national players. “These are things that we don’t think much about because we can’t change them anyway,” commented Ole Werner. After three defeats in four games, the Werder coach is likely to feel more pressure than anticipation about seeing his former professional again: “For me, in my everyday work, the fact that Niclas Füllkrug is playing on the other side is not a priority.”
