With only one point behind the relegation place, SV Werder Bremen are looking “up” at the start of the year, according to Anthony Jung. The left-back knows what promotion in the 2nd division feels like.
In May 2016, Anthony Jung made the leap into the Bundesliga with RB Leipzig, at the second attempt. A year earlier, the second-division club had only finished fifth – the planned march from the fourth to the first division took a year longer after all. Anthony Jung is not quite sure whether his team-mates at SV Werder Bremen are aware of this: “I can’t say whether they’ve looked at my CV. Maybe, he says, some have heard about it. In any case, if his colleagues have any questions on the subject of promotion, they can simply ask them.
On Tuesday, however, it was first the journalists’ turn. And in view of the gap of just one point to the relegation place, the 30-year-old replied: “I think that the last three games have put us in the position of the hunter,” said Jung, “we’re trying to take this push with us and get off to a good start. This refers to Bremen’s three wins in a row against Aue, Regensburg and Hannover before the Christmas holiday – and the resulting extremely successful takeover of coach Ole Werner.
“I trust the team 100 percent “
Despite seventh place – which shows how close the teams are in the first half of the table – “we are of course in a good position and are looking upwards,” says Jung. For a club like SV Werder Bremen, it was clear from the start that “we have to be ambitious”. In the meantime, after the initially bumpy course of the first half of the season and the recent upswing, this is becoming increasingly clear at the Bundesliga relegated team. Jung also emphasises: “I trust the team 100 per cent and am convinced that we have huge quality. “
In the past three victorious games “we have seen that we can be really good” – if the squad is complete. The impending absence of Niclas Füllkrug, Milos Veljkovic, Marco Friedl and Manuel Mbom from the Corona squad for the start on 15 January against Fortuna Düsseldorf is of course very inconvenient. And there is still “a lot of work ahead of us”, emphasises the Bremen left-back. “We must not rest on our laurels.” According to Jung, the team is working on “punch and precision, especially on the offensive, in order to score more goals”.
And to play for the top places in the table in the second half of the season. From his own experience in Leipzig, Jung is already advertising the “pure emotions” that a possible promotion would release: “You won’t forget it in your life. It’s simply a good feeling.” Perhaps some of his Bremen team-mates will now take notice too.
