As far as the fundamental differences between the promoted Werder and Schalke are concerned, Ole Werner raised, both the one and the other principle could be promising: "It can be a trump card for a promoted group to be able to fall back on something they already know." Other clubs However, after the second division championship, they exchanged the entire squad, and this also worked.

That's how he is, Ole Werner: thoughtful, differentiated, he can't deliver the master plan that explains everything.

Not for life, not in football.

It's easy to underestimate this coach, especially when Werder puts him in those white and gray oversized T-shirts, which make him look even paler than he used to be.

Werner will accept it if you don't call him a fashion junkie.

In this respect, the dress code for the game should not matter, at least until he has reached the European Cup with Werder Bremen and then stands on the sidelines in a suit, which would of course still be a dream for the moment.

For some fans in the Weser Stadium, however, this path seems preordained.

21 points, exhilarating performances like the 5-1 win against Gladbach, a lousy phase with three defeats mastered within one English week: enthusiasm for Werder is great right now, and the last tasks before the early winter break are not frightening because of decline and bad mood threaten, but come at just the right time.

On Tuesday with Bayern, then at home on the beloved Saturday afternoon against RB Leipzig - it feels wonderful to be rooting for the green-whites.

Offensive brand core

And many, very many in the stands draw a direct connection to Ole Werner and his work, which of course he takes more defensively and prefers to refer to the team.

However, it is well integrated into a larger whole: "Our brand essence is offensive football," he said in an interview with the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" at the weekend, "we had to find a basic order in which the players feel comfortable."

For a climber, Werder is very offensive, likes to be dominant and usually with a lot of ball possession.

So far it's been great for the pros, the coach, the fans, the whole club.

Because it is presentable, it corresponds to Werder's glorious history under Rehhagel and Schaaf (to which Werner never refers as a person or as an epoch), and it is successful, which is perhaps the most important thing after Werder, as a second division club, was financially affected by the disaster flirted: Who knows what would have happened to SVW if they hadn't been promoted, the club suffered so much from the lack of TV money and lack of income in times of the pandemic.

It is curious that there is no longer any talk of this - nor of how much pressure the board members Frank Baumann and Klaus Filbry were under after the decline in early summer 2021.

Now the team that was relegated is playing as the team that was promoted, at least for the most part.

Very different from Schalke, hence the question above.

That says a lot about club membership in these times, to avoid the word "loyalty".

After the 2:1 against the co-promoted from Gelsenkirchen, Werner, 34, was carried away to an interim conclusion.

"The lads have done a very good job so far," praised the coach, who usually prefers to talk about game tactics than overall assessments.

But then, referring to the comparison of restructuring versus continuity, he also recalled that not everything at Werder had grown organically and had been planned well in advance: "It's a very sensible path.

But we also don’t have many alternatives for financial reasons.”

The new Werder-Weg is therefore based on thrift.

The "normal" Werner embodies that perfectly.

He must have been pleased that his team managed to win again after the 1-0 win against Hertha without spraying too much glamor – as can be seen from the back-heel presentation by the in-form Mitchell Weiser before Niclas Füllkrugs made it 1-0 in the 30th minute away.

Marvin Ducksch's lob to make it 2-0 in the 76th minute also looked perfect.

The fact that criticism came from the team afterwards that things had to be done better soon spoke for a realistic self-assessment.

This also included the fact that captain Marco Friedl certainly had chances of something countable in Munich – and probably not just because the Austrian was on Bayern’s payroll and will be particularly motivated.

A look at the filling pitcher has been new in Bremen for a few weeks: What is our future national player doing?

This view was scary on Saturday evening, because Füllkrug had to go out after 60 minutes.

A Schalke jumped in his back.

Stakes at the Allianz Arena are in jeopardy, with everyone rushing to say it was nothing dramatic.

It would also be a shame if “fullness” in the last few meters before Qatar came too dangerously close to the attribute attached to him that he always gets injured when the next jump in his career is due.

The determination and instinct that allowed him to score 1-0 were in any case again advertising for the national team debut - should this form of self-PR be necessary at all.