The Set: UEFA Cup Final

For us fans of Ger­man foot­ball it was a sad night, but for us foot­ball fans, it wasn’t. The Ukraine won their first Euro­pean title with a team that earned it’s vic­tory. And they were an attrac­tive team to watch with Srna, Luiz Adri­ano, the Rat and Ilsinho mak­ing the core of a very enter­tain­ing side. They were able to check Werder’s counter attack and con­trolled the poses­sion for most of the match. So while I send my con­do­lences to Werder sup­port­ers, we should all be happy for the pos­i­tive emer­gence of Ukran­ian foot­ball on the night. And let’s not for­get the excel­lent atmos­phere that starts first with Turkey and its foot­ball crazy fans who made up the neutrals.

As for the game, Shak­tar came out fir­ing on all cylin­ders and con­trolled play for the first 20 min­utes. Only when Werder seemed to be get­ting some com­mand of the game did Donetsk strike. A beau­ti­fully deliv­ered Ilsinho through-ball, that turned the Bre­men defense, found a wide open Luiz Adri­ano, who made up for his 5th minute miss with a the opener. Naldo hit back 10 min­utes later on a free-kick, which was mis­han­dled by the Donetsk keeper Pya­tov. The sec­ond half was a stale­mate with both sides hav­ing peri­ods of dom­i­nance that petered out on poor fin­ish­ing or good defend­ing. A game that seemed des­tined for penal­ties as both teams tired, was decided early in extra time when Tim Wiese, who had been solid all game, allowed a dink shot by Jad­son to skirt under him for the even­tual win­ner. A late surge by Bre­men resulted in two dis­al­lowed goals and Shak­tar walked away with the spoils.

Seven Obser­vances from the last UEFA Cup Final

Diego’s grand exit

Unfor­tu­nately we didn’t get to see Diego off with a grand flour­ish. This had turned into his tour­na­ment, but his tem­per saw him miss out on a chance to cap it. His indeli­ble mark on the league may be that tem­per. A won­der­fully gifted player to watch and a tal­is­man dur­ing his three years at Werder Bre­men, he has never pro­duced the goods. Werder are with­out a tro­phy dur­ing his time, with their great­est accom­plish­ment over that course being the win­ter title three years ago. While that could change next week in the DFB Pokal, one won­ders if being so close to Werder’s first Euro­pean Cup since Michael Keaton was Bat­man only to lose will leave Bre­men list­less dur­ing their final two games.

What To Do?

How will Thomas Schaaf cope with­out Diego. One of the games more attack minded man­agers, he has built his suc­cess on the counter, uti­liz­ing wing-play and a dou­ble six for­ma­tion. But there needs to be a point in the mid­field that can link the defense and wings with the for­wards. Diego has been that man for three years. Will Schaaf change his approach or will some gem be uncov­ered else­where to be that point? Because it cer­tainly isn’t.…

Mesut Ozil

To say he isn’t ready to fill Diego’s shoes would be an under­state­ment. He was a boy among men, inca­pable of a moment of inspi­ra­tion, let alone com­mand­ing tempo, car­ry­ing the ball for­ward or set­ting up the chances. He was abject in this match and why he wasn’t pulled is a ques­tion we will all won­der for years to come. Pizarro has to be won­der­ing it as he was left with­out a link man the entire match. What has become appar­ent is that he is basi­cally the best guy you could imag­ine to take to a club as your wing-man, but you wouldn’t wanted him approach­ing any comely lasses on his own.

Speak­ing of the Lasses

If you were watch­ing on tele­vi­sion, what was with that female Werder fan start­ing her cry­ing in the 7th minute of extra time? You moan before, whinge dur­ing, bitch after and cry in a beer. Those are the rules sister.…learn them! Yes that goal seemed to be the nail at the time, but there were still 23 plus min­utes for a team that had come­back from worse against A.C. Milan and Ham­burg. To be hon­est, Piz­zaro scored the equal­izer in the 122nd. Not a foul! How any­one can start the histri­on­ics at that junc­ture is beyond me.

Dar­ijo Srna is the SHIT!

He was out of this world. We could see his qual­ity in last year’s Euro­pean Cham­pi­onship for Croa­tia, but he had become easy to for­get play­ing in an up-and-coming but poorly-covered league. He trau­ma­tized poor Sebas­t­ian Boenisch, ran his boots off for 120 min­utes, was the most effec­tive defender at neu­tral­iz­ing the counter and saved the match when he got between Ozil and the goal late in the sec­ond half. I

On Werder’s end it was another right wing player, Clemens Fritz who deserves recog­ni­tion for being Werder clos­est approx­i­ma­tion of the whirling dervish that was Srna tonight.

Howl­ing at the Moon

In the long run, they equaled out, but both keep­ers had amaz­ing blun­ders that cost their teams tonight. Andrei Pyatov’s felt that Naldo’s free­kick needed help and palmed Werder’s equal­izer into the back of his net. On the other side, Tim Wiese used extra­or­di­nar­ily poor posi­tion­ing to allow Jadson’s unre­mark­able shot to become a win­ner. Think­ing about it, maybe that woman who was cry­ing is a goal keeper.

If Only

While we can all rue the absence of Almeida, Per and Diego, deep into extra time the man who they needed popped up in black. His name was Thomas Schaaf. With time run­ning down and the no Werder player seem­ing will­ing to get the ball back up field for the throw in (which would lead to a Pizarro chance), Schaaf jumped on the pitch and kicked the ball to the thrower. His quick­ness and deter­mi­na­tion stood in stark con­trast to his play­ers, who had seemed unin­ter­ested and to be run­ning on fumes (other than Fritz and Pizarro) from the first minute.

Tagged as: Darijo Srna, Diego, Mesut Ozil, Shaktar Donetsk, Thomas Schaaf, Tim Wiese, UEFA Cup