CL-Quali Basel beats Werder in the first leg
By Heidi
August 12 2005
FC Basel wins the first leg of the last and decisive Champions League Qualification round with 2-1 vs. Werder Bremen. David Degen and Julio-Hernan Rossi were marking twice for the hometeam, Miroslave Klose shoot the important away-goal for the current leader of the Bundesliga.
Christian Gross decided to begin with Petric and Sterjovski in the attack, the Champions League proven argentinian strikers Gimenez and Rossi, who fell a bit out of favour with Gross because of their excessive flirts with other clubs, were left to stew on the bench.
Basel began dominant and had the first good chances. So was Chipperfield not able to score with the head and a few seconds later missed several of the his teammates a good ball of the australian international.
In such important games its essential to make an optimal use of the chances the opponent allows, but this was not the case in Basels peformance. So missed Smiljanic even twice the ball in very promising situations and between these two blackouts failed Chipperfield alone before Reinke. Basel played the best game since a long time and acquired a lot of chances.
From Werders side was except a lot of fouls and many failed attempted centre balls nothing to see for the time being. The best possibility of the guests had Borowski with a 25m shoot which flew close over the bar. But the next situation was again in Basels favour: Chipperfields shoot was stopped by Reinke but the ball came somehow to Degen who scored the well-deserved 1-0.
After the goal tried Werder to change into a higher gear. Frings with a decent volley and especially Klasnic alone before Zuberbühler missed the equalizer. Basel on the other hand could have made the 2-0 with chances for Petric and again Sterjovski. But both missed quite poor and so eneded the very entertaining first half with a scarce lead for Basel.
After the break came Rossi for Chipperfield, who`s nose was broken in a single combat at the end of the first half. Basel started as offensive as in the first half and got one corner after the other, without profiting from them. But this changed in the 52th minute! Petric could pass a fantastic ball to Rossi who pushed the ball through Reinkes legs, 2-0 for Basel!
This would of course have been an ideal result for Basel, but the swiss champion could not keep the pressure over 90 minutes. The longer the more was Bremen the better and forced the "Bebbi" back in their own half. In this period was Basels weak playmaker Delgado replaced by Ergic. In the 73th minute came the ball after a free kick to Klose, who scored with a nice "shoot by turning" for the northwest-germans. In the minutes after were Bremen making a lot pressure and was close to the equalizer, the best chance was a Klasnic-header who could be cleared in a miraculous way by Zuberbühler.
In the last minutes it was obvious that both teams very not really unhappy with this result and so the game ended 2-1 for Basel.
The FCB has now a realistic chance to qualify for the Champions League in two weeks in the Weserstadion, if they show a similar performance and try to be a little bit more efficient in front of the opponents goal. Bremen can only be happy with the result, which would them allow to join the Champions league with a poor 1-0 at home.
FC Basel - SV Werder Bremen 2:1 (1:0)
Goals: 28. Degen 1:0, 52. Rossi 2:0, 74. Klose 2:1
St. Jakob Park - 28'101 Spectators – Referee: Allaerts (Belgium)
FC Basel: Zuberbühler; Zanni, Quennoz, Smiljanic, Kléber; Ba; Degen, Chipperfield (46. Rossi); Delgado (65. Ergic); Petric, Sterjovski (70. Baykal)
SV Werder Bremen: Reinke; Pasanen, Naldo, Vranjes, Davala; Micourd, Frings (65. Owomoyela), Van Damme (46. Schulz), Borowski; Klose, Klasnic
Remarks: FCB without Carignano, Yakin and Berner (all injured); Dzombic, Rakitic, Eduardo, Kuzmanovic (not in the contingent). Bremen withou Baumann and Wiese (all injured). Yellow cards: 23. Van Damme, 62. Davala, 84. Quennoz
The second leg will be played 24th of august in Bremens Weserstadion.