Bremen crew reacts to defeat: "This will never happen again!"
Mitchell Weiser, Marco Friedl, Leonardo Bittencourt club boss Clemens Fritz, and head-coach Ole Werner have all now had a chance to register comments on on Bremen's historic debacle against Köln on Saturday evening.
| Mitchell Weiser | Gert Zander CC-BY-SA 3.0 |
"We only have ourselves to blame," one of the Bremen players who committed a crucial error, Mitchell Weiser, told Sky Germany, "You can't say that it came down to Köln's quality. That was simply abysmal from us. If you offer up such a performance in this business, one must take responsibility for it. And no one can exude themselves of blame, we - myself included - have to question ourselves."
Captain Marco Friedl, who scored an own goal, concurred.
"I think we were still in training camp with those first five goals," Friedl said, "We missed everything you can miss and played directly into Köln's hands. We knew what was coming - and still did everything wrong."
"We were shown up," former Kölner professional Leonardo Bittencourt added, "They knew from A-to-Z what we were doing. They even broadcast their lineup to us two days before kickoff. Today, we were simply 'hopscotched'. They stomped all over us."
"Everything was missing," Werder player licensing head and long-time Bremen professional Clemens Fritz assessed, "That's what amazed me. When you offer a game like today, you can't present yourself like that - that was an insult. Köln showed us our limits today. We need to do significantly better next time."
"Our performance is hard to put into words," head-coach Ole Werner said, before trying his best to do that, "The bottom line is that it was disastrous, we can only apologize. The first three goals conceded come from our own set-piece situations, then to fall apart like that, that's not acceptable. We have surrendered to our fate and there's no positives from me. We have to come to terms with it fully."
"We weren't at 98 percent," Werner concluded with a jab at his team's readiness, "That was more like eight percent."
Matters don't exactly get easier for the recently promoted team. Considered largely safe from the relegation race entering this matchday, Bremen must now face second-placed 1. FC Union Berlin at home on Wednesday; a team that surprised many with an impressive comeback victory today. After that, the packed "Englisher Woche" concludes with a hosting of red-hot Wolfsburg next Saturday.
Weiser, for his part, made a guarantee of sorts.
"This will never happen to us again," Weiser said, "I can promise that. I can promise that we will play better on Wednesday."