Both coaches were satisfied with the performance of their respective teams after they shared the points at the Volkswagen Arena, although VfL boss Bruno Labbadia was disappointed his side did not hold on to their 1-0 lead. His Bremen counterpart Florian Kohfeldt was pleased with the character his players showed and an important point gained in what he called “one of our toughest away games for a while”.
Bruno Labbadia: “It was a big compliment to us that a team with a possession-based style like Werder Bremen set up with a 4-5-1 formation. We started the second half in exactly the same way as the first because I told the lads to be patient and keep playing the way they were. There’s always a danger that you lose your patience at some point when your opponents are defending well. The team did very well in that respect. After deservedly taking the lead, we failed to score the second goal and then Werder have the individual quality of Max Kruse to score a goal like that. It’s frustrating for us because we would’ve deserved the three points.”
Florian Kohfeldt: “That was one of our toughest away games for a while. We knew beforehand that Wolfsburg like to switch positions, particularly in attack, and that they’re very hard to contain. The goal we conceded was a frustrating and silly one for us because we were starting to feel we could create more in the second half. On the question of offside, I have to say clearly that I’m happy the goal wasn’t disallowed. You have to let situations like that go – we just defended it badly. After that, we had a ‘now or never’ mentality and had a few chances to score. In the end it was a deserved point for us and a very important one for our position in the table.”
