Solid as a rock

Thomas Schaaf has never known anything other than Werder Bremen. In fact, the only time he played in anything that wasn't a Werder shirt was when he made two appearances for Germany's under-21 side in the 1980s. As a coach, he first led Werder Bremen's youth team, then its amateur team, and now the senior team since 1999. It is the kind of total identification rare in top-flight European football.

After those 12 years, there's a sense that Schaaf has closed the circle of footballing fortunes. In the season he took over the senior team, Werder finished 13th in the Bundesliga, and it was that unlucky-for-some spot they returned to last May.

The zenith of the cycle was of course 2004's league and cup double, when Bremen were a major force. The run held for some time - Bremen finished either second or third in the next four seasons. With their open and creative philosophy, they became every neutral's favorite team.

It could be argued that Bremen's flowing, counter-attacking style was the prototype for Germany's successful national side under Jürgen Klinsmann and then Jogi Löw. Certainly Bremen nurtured and developed some of the key German national players in the last five years, notably Torsten Frings, Per Mertesacker, and latterly Mesut Özil, who came of age in his 71 appearances for Bremen before he moved to Real Madrid.

End of an era? Not likely!

So when Bremen limped through last season, many thought that Schaaf had reached the end of his natural tenure. Gloom hung around the club: The reluctance to defend - always a concern - became a serious liability, while the losses of Diego in 2009 and Özil in 2010 seemed to have left too big a gap to fill in the midfield, where Bremen had always excelled. As of last week, of course, Bremen will also have to make do without central defender Mertesacker, who was sold to Premiership club Arsenal.

Fans - so used to successful, attacking football - booed their disheartened team off the pitch; The 4-0 defeat to Schalke in November was a lowlight.

But against all these depressing portents, Bremen have got off to a flyer this time round. Having registered three wins from four games, they now have the same points tally as league leaders Bayern Munich.

How can this return to fortune be explained? Schaaf himself has no magic formula. "It's about having the imagination to believe that you can achieve things with the team you have," he told Deutsche Welle. "And we definitely have the imagination to believe we can achieve a lot with this team."

Schaaf-Allofs team questioned

Last season's misery got to the stage that fans began to attack the successful duopoly that Schaaf had created with club director Klaus Allofs. But Schaaf is forgiving of that discontent.

"It's not just that football has got quicker on the pitch, it's that everything surrounding football has got quicker - successes, results, what do they count for? How long do they count for anything?" he said. "I think our many successes delayed the criticism for a while."

Schaaf also thinks that the stability that the Schaaf-Allofs partnership has provided is part of what has made Bremen unique. "The people we have worked with knew what we stood for," he said. "They knew what Klaus Allofs stood for, and what Thomas Schaaf stood for, and that has helped."

The stability clearly helped Bremen get through their difficult season, but Schaaf believes it can help ground the team in what has become a fast-changing footballing world.

"It used to be when you signed a player, you'd say, 'well, if we take one, he'll fit in quickly. A second one would also be fine.' But if you added a third new player, you'd start to get wary, and a fourth would have been unthinkable," he explains. "Nowadays you replace your whole squad. Six, seven, eight players, 12 players, and it takes time for that to work. But no one has time anymore, and no one gives you that time anymore."

So in this world of universal change, does that mean Schaaf will never work for another club? "I wouldn't rule it out," he says simply.

Author: Ben Knight
Editor: Nancy Isenson