Johan Micoud wrote that he wanted to "cry".
It was a farewell greeting after relegation that the Bundesliga does not experience too often.
So much history, so many memories of the big days.
In this case, they were still quite fresh.
It was only twelve years ago that Werder Bremen reached the Uefa Cup final, with players like Mesut Özil, Diego or Claudio Pizarro, and after the final was lost, Werder won the DFB Cup.
But now, after many desolate years, the people of Bremen must finally face a new reality, and there it is certainly no consolation that one is in the league of the fallen in illustrious company.
Welcome to the club!
Whether in Frankfurt, Mönchengladbach, Stuttgart, Berlin or Cologne - at these league locations with a lot of tradition and charisma you have known the feeling for a bit longer, recently also in Gelsenkirchen and with the neighbors from Hamburg anyway: what it is like when you are past the past doesn't help because you've been overtaken or left behind in the present.
The complaint that there is (no longer) any competition in the Bundesliga seems pretty baseless when you look at this segment.
It's actually a pretty brutal competition, a struggle for survival of the middle class, in which mistakes can quickly become very expensive and which has intensified again in recent years: With every additional club that takes its risk, like Wolfsburg, Leipzig, Leverkusen or Hoffenheim Making mistakes can cushion comfortably, the air becomes thinner for others.
Others risk less
It is all the more astonishing that clubs like Mainz (twelve years without interruption), Augsburg (ten years), or Freiburg (five years) are proving themselves to be survivors in this harsh climate. It is likely to be mainly due to two things that mix a little differently depending on the location: that a different self-image is maintained by default. None of these clubs has allowed themselves to be seduced into risking too much, a way of thinking that is also reflected in appropriate safeguards in squad planning and style of play. And that there is an awareness of always having to be a little smarter and more innovative than the competition.
At Werder, on the other hand, there was nothing of both recently: Under coach Kohfeldt and managing director Baumann, the Bremen had given themselves the illusion of being able to play with the big ones again, which seemed covered by Kohfeldt's first season, but then in the past season as almost disastrous hubris.
Since then, it was not clear what the team was put together for: In principle, it was a team for well-kept ball possession, but too weak in terms of quality.
There was a lack of angularity for well-defended football that is something that is important in Augsburg or Mainz, for good reasons.
And a lot is said about Werder's innovative strength with the fact that in the end Thomas Schaaf was supposed to save what could no longer be saved.
In Bremen, only the soft factors were right in the end, all tough competition categories - financial, personnel - on the other hand, had been pointing to relegation for a long time. That should now be the basis for a renewal of oneself. How this is supposed to work is a secret to other fallen soldiers that is pretty exclusive at Werder.