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My preferred starting XI against Werder Bremen

The all-important Champions League campaign of Chelsea starts on tuesday when Werder Bremen arrive in the Stamford Bridge. The Chelsea Football Club has publicly stated that their main target of this season is winning the Champions League, apart from the other domestic laurels. Having drawn in the group of death containing Barca and Bremen, there are already rumours that Jose would be shown the door if Chelsea under-perform in this Champions League. Though I dont believe a bit in this rumour, I have to completely admit that anything less than a runner-up in this Champions League is a disappointment.

In this context, we face Bremen who are as tough as any other Champions League team. Even in the worst case scenario, out of the 6 matches to be played in the group league stage, Chelsea should beat Levski Sofia twice, win and draw against Bremen and draw and lose against Barca. This would give us 11 points out of possible 18, which should see us through to the second round. The best case scenario is if we beat Levski and Bremen twice and manage to win one match against Barca, we would end up with 15 points. So, the range for Chelsea would be anywhere from 11 to 15 points, which would be safe enough to sail.

Werder Bremen is a strong that likes to play attacking football and they have been very impressive in the last Bundesliga season when they finished second to Bayern in the Bundesliga last season only by 5 points. They had scored more goals than any other team in their league and had the best goal difference too. Couple of seasons back, Lyon destroyed Bremen’s dreams in the Champions league by a 7-2 win where Essien scored twice for Lyon. We also have Michael Ballack, who has played against Bremen several times and I’m sure he would be sharing his knowledge with Jose Mourinho, captain Terry and the rest of the team. And there is Boulahrouz, who also has played them quite a number of times over the last few years. So, we can safely say that, we should have a good measure of our opponent.

Michael Ballack on Werder Bremen:

“Some days they can play very, very well. They are a team that thinks very offensively. They want to score every game. But sometimes they give chances to the other team, they make mistakes in defence. But I remember games where they lost badly because they were playing so offensively. As a team, seven or eight players have stayed together now for two or three years, so they’ve grown together. Now they are very strong”.

The Werder Bremen team:

Andreas Reinke (GK), Petri Pasanen (DF), Naldo (DF), Pierre Wome (DF), Frank Baumann (MF), Jurica Vranjes (MF), Clemens Fritz (MF), Mohamed Zidan (FW), Diego (MF), Miroslav Klose (FW), Aaron Hunt (FW), Patrick Owomoyela (DF), Leon Andreasen (DF), Ivan Klasnic (FW), Tim Wiese (GK), Jerome Polenz (FW), Daniel Jensen (MF), Torsten Frings (MF), Hugo Almeida (FW), Tim Borowski (MF), Florian Mohr (MF), Christian Schulz (DF), Per Mertesacker (DF), Kasper Jensen (GK), Christian Vander (GK).

Men to watch in the opponent camp: Miroslav Klose, Torsten Frings and Diego. Klose and Frings had a wonderful world cup in Germany. Diego is the new signing from FC Porto, who has arrived amidst much expectations.

The Chelsea FC team:

On our side, we should play 4-1-3-2 with Joe Cole and Robben yet to return from injury. I would start with Cech (GK), Wayne Bridge (LB), John Terry (CB), Ricardo Carvalho (CB), Khalid Boulahrouz (RB), Makelele (DMF), Ballack (RM), Essien (LM), Lampard (AMF), Drogba (CF) and Shevchenko (CF). Unlike the last campaign, we should have more self-confidence and play more aggressively and try to finish off the opponents. And I hope Jose has made it very clear that we have to play for 90 minutes. This is the Champions League and we can’t afford any late winners or equalisers by the opposition. It will be very tiring as we had played a match on saturday and now we have to play this match on tuesday and we have a clash with Liverpool once again, on Sunday. Nothing much to complain as this is what separates boys from men. I would be happy with 2-1.

[tags] chelsea, champions league, uefa, werder bremen, jose mourinho, michael ballack, khalid boulahrouz, miroslav klose, torsten frings, diego, stamford bridge, essien, barcelona, levski sofia [/tags]