It took a while but a hint of life did eventually return to Klaus Allofs's pale face, along with one minute, positive thought. "We didn't make any new mistakes today," it occurred to the sporting director in the concrete bowels of the Veltinsarena. "Unfortunately, though," he continued with a grimace, "we made all the old ones again."
No one could dispute Werder Bremen's consistency in that respect. They had started well enough away to Schalke, in "the summit of frustration" (Die Welt). But then the first goal by Christoph Metzelder saw them disintegrate like Waldmeister-flavoured Ahoj Brause in a glass of fizzy water. A hat-trick from Raúl made the result doubly misleading: Schalke weren't all that good to have won 4-0, Werder much too bad. Double figures wouldn't have surprised anyone.
"Apart from [Tim Wiese], you can all go home," the 6,000 travelling supporters sang when some players tried to apologise after the final whistle. About a hundred irate fans stayed behind to block the team bus from leaving. Per Mertesacker had to get out and promise more effort next time. The next day, there were rumours that hardcore supporters might stage a protest outside the training centre; two police man were dispatched, just in case. Nothing in fact happened, but discontent in the citystate has probably never been more keenly felt. In easy-going, unhurried Bremen, they don't whisper the word crisis lightly. Now, they're screaming it from the rooftops.
"We don't write 'relegation battle' on the board but there is no point thinking about the Champions League [for next season]," conceded Allofs. They're 12th in the table, only four points clear of Bundesliga 2 doom. In the Champions League, they're all but out. Confidence before the daunting trip to White Hart Lane on Wednesday couldn't be lower. On top of it all, there is another injury. Brazilian jack-of-all-trades Wesley (hamstring) won't travel.
Allofs is right: Bremen's inability to defend is nothing new. But this season, they seem to have taken their notorious open-door policy to a new extreme: there is no longer any door to speak of, only a vast thoroughfare, with free, guaranteed passage to anyone who happens to be in the vicinity. Away to Inter (0-4), the northerners were so soft that Gazzetta dello Sport dubbed them "Werder Crema". A less polite headline writer might have changed "Werder" to a similar sounding Italian word starting with an "m". "We're dreaming, we're ball-watching, we're doing nothing," said the coach Thomas Schaaf. "Everyone's delighted to play against us at the moment."
In the absence of Brazilian Naldo, the comedy double-act of centre-backs Sebastian Prödl and Mertesacker is plumbing deeper depths than local pop heroes Klaus & Klaus in their heyday. The less said about Mickaël Silvestre and other faux full-backs, the better. Unfortunately for Werder, their chronic deficits at the back are no longer offset by sublime attacking football. Mesut Özil's departure to Real Madrid has left too big a gap in the creative department. Neither Marko "The Austrian Ibra" Arnautovic, who unhelpfully combines the megalomania of Zlatan with a fraction of his talents, nor the more defensively minded Wesley have been able to make a real difference going forward. And "in midfield, Torsten Frings acts like a diva who believes she's still seeing yesterday's beautiful reflection in the mirror", wrote Süddeutsche Zeitung. "He elegantly dispatches long balls into areas where someone used to make runs in the past, but where there's only the sorry Hugo Almeida standing around offside these days."
Increasingly, the finger of blame is pointing to Allofs, who seems to have been deserted by his sure touch in the transfer-market. A distinct lack of useful young, home-grown players compounds the trouble and it's obvious that Schaaf, the grumpiest man in German football, doesn't have any answers either. "We only have these players and we only have one plan. There is no plan B and no plan C. We simply have put our plan into action much better," he insisted. "Schaaf is in danger of destroying his own monument," wrote Die Welt.
The €60m stadium renovation has reduced the margin of error for this expensive team dramatically. Even more worryingly for Werder, Bild revealed that Schaaf has already offered his resignation in a team-talk last week. Where can they go from here? Allofs tried to scare the team into submission by freezing part of the wages in October. That trick only worked for a couple of weeks, until the missing thousands were paid out, along with November's wages in full.
"There is no fight in the team. We break apart immediately when things don't go according to plan," said the midfielder Aaron Hunt, a man who seems lost in lethargy, like his team-mate Tim Borowski. Allofs's fortunes have always been closely tied to those of Schaaf - they've both been in charge since 1999 - but the 53-year-old won't hesitate to put the knife in before he goes down himself. The 0-4 at 04 was the "worst day" in his time at Bremen, he said, before putting just a touch of daylight between him and the moustachioed coach. "I still believe [Schaaf] is the right man for the job but that's not a dogma," he said carefully. The end of an era? It looks as if it might have begun.
Talking points
Forget Fahad Khalfan, forget Frank Mill, forget Geoff Hurst's decent, unfortunate effort in the 1966 final - Saturday saw the miss that puts all misses to shame. Dortmund were 2-1 up in a hard-fought match away to Freiburg, when Jakub "Kuba" Blaszczykowski had the ball at his feet and an empty goal at his mercy. There was no one around him within a 10-metre radius. He had enough time to run, back-heel, stroke, juggle, or to "look, I can put it on my nose and hop around with it like circus seal" Nani-it into the net. Actually, "he would have had time pull out a paperback of War and Peace and read at least half it", according to Süddeutsche. But instead, he scooped it over from 12 metres with undue haste. This kind of YouTube-tastic mishap has enough destructive potential to wreck a season, let alone a game, but luckily Dortmund can't do wrong at the moment. Kuba's crisis was merely academic in the end, since Jürgen Klopp's team held out to register yet another win, a record seventh consecutive three-pointer away from home. "Maybe we will re-enact the scene in training to show him that this kind of ball might actually go in," Klopp joked benignly. Dortmund are still top of the league, peerless like Kuba's try.
"Some will probably say we're still in crisis because we didn't win 3-2 instead of 3-0," Eugen Polanski said defiantly. Mainz 05's first win after three defeats, away to dead-cert relegation fodder Gladbach, was celebrated as return to normal service by this year's surprise outfit who simply refuse give up the second spot. "We were lacking courage and cohesion before but these are only details," said a satisfied Thomas Tuchel. "The team is very settled." Substitute Sami Allagui scored a brace to turn the match around after Marco Reus had netted two for the hosts.
Bastian Schweinsteiger wore a shirt that had the sponsor's logo upside down, he scored with a header after 84 seconds that was wrongly ruled offside and he witnessed Bayern's defence put in yet another error-strewn, terrifying shift that had Franz Beckenbauer reach for the word "Kindergarten". But something even more remarkable happened in the wake of the 1-1 draw (goals from Mario Gomez and Arturo Vidal (pen), Daniel van Buyten and Danijel Paranjic had both blundered) with Leverkusen on Saturday: Bayern voluntarily pulled out of the title race. Well, kind of. "We are 14 points behind Dortmund, we don't have to think about the championship," said the concerned sporting director Christian Nerlinger. Franz Beckenbauer went one step further, claiming, with some justification, that Borussia were currently "lightyears" ahead of Louis van Gaal's team. Suddenly, the more mundane goal of Champions League qualification has become the greatest concern in Munich, especially since eighth-placed Bayern can't quite bank on winning the European Cup, even if they do decide to sign Juventus left-back Domenico Criscito, 24, in January. Not one but three or four Arjen Robbens would really have to return after the winter break to give them any chance. As long as there's still room for centre-Drecks like van Buyten or Martin Demichelis on the pitch, however, Bayern's case is forlorn.
Results: Frankfurt 0–4 Hoffenheim, Freiburg 1–2 Dortmund, Nürnberg 1–3 Kaiserslautern, Gladbach 2–3 Mainz, Hannover 3–2 Hamburg, Schalke 4–0 Werder, Leverkusen 1–1 Bayern, St Pauli 1–1 Wolfsburg, Stuttgart 0-1 Köln.
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