Much looked familiar on the lawn.

Eight players from the relegation team were in Werder Bremen's starting eleven against Hannover 96 on Saturday evening. In addition to the pitch, a lot has changed: coach Florian Kohfeldt is gone, his assistant Tim Borowski has left the club, Thomas Schaaf did not get a new contract as technical director .

Supervisory board boss Marco Bode will leave in September.

A big move in responsible positions, so when relegated from the Bundesliga, and most of the 14,000 spectators would have wished that the team had looked completely different.

But it didn't - on the contrary, in terms of staff and style of play, it was very similar to the team that brought SV Werder down for the first time since 1980.

So the start of the second Bundesliga ended after the disappointing 1: 1 with whistles in the Weserstadion.

Big holes in the balance sheets

In fact, those responsible around the sporting director, Frank Baumann, and squad planner Clemens Fritz loaded a nice rucksack on their new trainer, Markus Anfang.

Baumann has announced 15 to 20 purchases and sales by the end of the transfer period on August 31.

Revenues in the double-digit millions are needed.

The pandemic has torn huge holes in the club's balance sheets.

This means that professionals like Ömer Toprak, Maximilian Eggestein and Josh Sargent still play for Werder, but could soon be gone if there are good offers.

The same applies to Leonardo Bittencourt, Ludwig Augustinsson and Jiri Pavlenka who were not used on Saturday evening due to injuries.

In addition to probable departures, there must also be accesses in order to pull off the game with a brisk exterior at the beginning.

Insecurity in the mind

On Saturday, the new coach tried two center forwards due to a lack of alternatives; Sargent dodged to the right, Niclas Füllkrug stayed in the middle. That didn't work. But the main problem was something else. The uncertainty of the relegation season is in the mind. Beginning said, “There is a lack of confidence. You can tell that the players are inhibited and have been in their clothes for the past two years. "

In addition, there is the unclear situation as to who will actually play for Werder from the beginning of September. In view of the upheaval that is to be expected, the people of Bremen have deliberately not proclaimed promotion as a season's goal, but rather reconstruction. At the moment, Werder is reminiscent of Hamburger SV in its very first second division season, when an attempt was made to repair the "industrial accident" Bundesliga relegation with an expensive team full of first division players. The result is known.

Hannover 96 played well and should have scored more than the 1-1 through Marvin Ducksch after the Bremen lead through Simon Falette's own goal. In the last 20 minutes they completely dominated the staggering Bremer. The new coach of the "Reds", Jan Zimmermann, had bravely come on and was satisfied - while his colleague has now seen all the problems that he had pointed out several times during the preparation.