Bremen waiting on Ozil

Posted Thursday, September 17, 2009 by PA

Werder Bremen coach Thomas Schaaf will wait on the fitness of midfielder Mesut Ozil because of a knee injury before naming his team to face Nacional in the Europa League.

The Bundesliga club, last season's beaten UEFA Cup finalists, hope the 20-year-old will be fit for the match and has travelled with the squad to the Portuguese island of Madeira.

Ozil was forced to leave training on Tuesday after half an hour and head coach Schaaf was concerned over his fitness.

He told www.werderbremen.de: "He had knee problems. We have heard that he has been fighting it for a while now, even while he was at the (German) national team.

"We will see if he can play or not. We hope of course that he gets it under wraps. But he will fly with us."

Ozil admitted: "I have pain in my knee."

One player who has returned to training after injury is Sweden international striker Markus Rosenberg, but he is not expected to make his return in Funchal.

The 26-year-old said: "I am happy to finally be back. But of course I am not back to 100%. One week of training is not enough for that."

Schaaf will be without Marko Futacs who is with the Hungarian Under-20 national team in Telki preparing for the Under-20 World Cup in Egypt.

Torsten Oehrl and Niklas Andersen did not make the trip to Portugal as they were on duty with Werder's Under-23 team for a fixture against Kickers Offenbach on Tuesday.

Nacional will look to put their poor Portuguese league form behind them when they face Werder.

The Funchal-based club find themselves in 13th place in the table after taking just two points from their first four games.

For Nacional coach Manuel Machado this game will not be the first time he has come up against Schaaf.

Machado was in charge of Braga in the 2007/08 season when Bremen defeated they 4-0 on aggregate in a UEFA Cup last 32 tie.

But despite the German side being favourites to top the group there is hope in the Nacional camp.

The club's president Rui Alves said: "If you look at the clubs from a financial perspective, Bremen would be the first and Nacional would be the last in this group.

"But we have hopes of moving into the next stage. Bremen is the favourite in the group and this is our most important game."