Champions League MatchDay 2 : Inter 4-0 Werder Bremen

Inter ripped Werder apart in 13 minutes, while Schaaf's side had no answers to Eto'o's brillinatly performed "false nine" role.

The starting line-ups

Benitez lined up with his usual 4-2-3-1. Pandev and Milito were unavailable, so Eto'o was upfornt with debutants Coutinho and Biabiany on the left and right flank respectively. On the other hand, Thomas Schaaf had to deal with the absences of important players (Pizarro, Frings and Fritz, all got injured in the Bundesliga match against Hamburg)   so he opted for a 4-5-1, with Jensen-Bragfrede-Borowski as the midfield trio while Wesley was preferred to Petri Pasanen at right back.

First Half (3-0)

The scoreline at half time speaks for itself.

Taking a look at Bremen's defence, it was clear that they would be easily put under pressure should Inter's front four were allowed to find any space. Eto'o's movements proved to be the key factor for this. The African had an excellent game, acting brilliantly as a "false nine", dropping deep and disorganizing the opposition defence.

The hosts' main plan was to exploit the space created when Eto'o was closed down by Werder's holding players as well as to play through balls on the shoulder of the opposition defenders. Both Silvestre and Wesley looked particularly uncomfortable. The Frenchman had problems with Biabiany's runs while Wesley  obviously lacks of the positional awareness required to play at right back. Inter's wingers streched the play by occupying wide positions, before linking up with Eto'o, whilst Sneijder' performed his more attack minded role -a sign of  Benitez era?- very effectively.

On the other hand, Inter's pressing forced their opponents to play long balls looking for Almeida. Borowski was playing too high up the pitch and as a result  he could neither link the midfield with the attack nor help the holding players to deal with Inter's numerical advantage created by Eto'o's presence. Moreover, Bragfrede and particularly Jensen were unable to control their area whilst Marin and Arnautovic could not find much space behind the striker, with Inter keeping their lines close together outside their area.

Both teams had chances to open the scoring in the first 20 minutes. Almeida didn't manage to lob Julio Cesar on the counter attack and he also failed to get to the end of a great cross coming from Borowski, which was probably the only occasion Werder built up an organized attack in the first 45 minutes.

Nevertheless, the German side have been alarmed by Inter's two great chances when firstly Coutinho, unmarked,  missed a header on goal and secondly when the Brazilian found Sneijder with a wonderful pass over the shoulder of the defence but his shot was saved by Wiese.

Finally, Inter scored their first one when Jensen lost the ball outside his area and Eto'o beat Wiese. 13 minutes later the score was 3-0, with the German defence unable to cope with the genious play of the Cameroon striker. The two goals that followed indicate this:

Image 1  Internazionale's 2nd goal : Eto'o (red dot) makes a short decoy run towards the midfield, dragging Prödl high up the pitch. Then he turns goal side and easily exploits the space created in the defence, as it would be very difficult for the immobile Austrian defender to track him. An excellent first touch on Lucio's long ball was followed by his second goal of the match.  

Image 2 Internazionale's 3rd goal : Once again (1) Lucio finds Eto'o (red dot) who (2) passes to Stankovic (blue dot) and (3)immediately makes himself available for the return pass  before (4) finding Sneijder, who finally scores Inter's 3rd goal.

Werder had no answers to the difficulties of dealing with a striker who drops into deep positions but their overall defending was also naive (a usual situation under Schaaf's reign):

On the second goal (Image1), Prödl follows Eto'o, leaving the space behind him, while the holding player (Bargfrede) provides no cover, Jensen is close to Sneijder and Mertesacker is too far to act effectively as the spare man in defence. Borowski was mainly getting goalside of the opposite holding player nearest to the ball, but neither him nor Almeida prevent Lucio from attempting a long ball to the attack.

The way Inter scored their 3rd goal (Image2) was magnificent. They needed only four passes before Sneijder hit the back of the net: Lucio is allowed to complete a pass to Eto'o(arrow-1) through the heart of the midfield. At this time Eto'o (red dot) is initially followed by Prödl, who steps back, leaving Bragfrede and Jensen confused about who would pick him up. The striker gives the ball to Stankovic (blue dot/arrow-2), then immediately moves into the space available, to offer an option for a return pass (arrow-3), before setting up for Sneijder, who was moving "on the shoulder of" of Mertesacker.  Apart from being a great forward, the African showed a memorable "instinct of creativity ", maybe a matter of mentality, as Benitez claimed. Bremen's midfield trio (green dots-Borowski higher up) failed to close him down effectively. Furthermore, Coutinho and Biabiany stayed in wide areas, resulting in Sneijder making his run untracked. Werder's offside-trap was invalidated by Wesley's (orange dot) lack of positional awareness when playing at the back four.

Second Half (4-0)

Pasanen came in for Borowski, with Wesley moving up to his natural midfield position and later on Hunt replaced Marin for Bremen, but nothing really changed. They were more comfortable on possession but their attacks, focused on the Arnautovic-Hunt partnership on the left flank, were easily intercepted by Inter's defence.
 The hosts maintained their pressure for the most of the half and it finally  took another midfield error form Bragfrede to give Eto'o the opportunity to complete his hat-trick.



Although the error prone German defence made things simpler,  Samuel Eto'o's brilliant performance re-emerged the debate about the way a "false nine" role could affect various aspects of modern defending.