Werder Bremen 0 - 2 Monchengladbach : Gladbach book Champions League spot

Posted Sunday, May 17, 2015 by PA

Borussia Monchengladbach sealed their place in the Champions League group stage next season thanks to a 2-0 win at Werder Bremen.

Raffael scored both the goals for the Foals as they maintained their five-point advantage over fourth-placed Bayer Leverkusen with just one game of the season remaining.

Bremen can still join them in Europe next season, but to do that they must win at Borussia Dortmund next weekend and hope that both Augsburg lose and that Dortmund do not then lift the DFB-Pokal.

Davie Selke, who was given a send-off by the north German club prior to kick-off together with Sebastian Prodl, headed the first chance of the game onto the roof of the net.

At the other end, Granit Xhaka gave Koen Casteels some work to do with an early sighter from long range.

They got closer to taking the lead in the 13th minute when Oscar Wendt's cross took a deflection off Prodl to hit the post with Casteels beaten.

Gladbach were dictating the game, but they nearly got caught out when Theodor Gebreselassie's effort whizzed just wide of Yann Sommer's goal.

Casteels was being kept busy in the Bremen goal and he had to be at his best to deny Alvaro Dominguez from close range 10 minutes before the interval

Sommer did even better at the other end right at the start of the second half with a stunning stop to deny Selke, but the deadlock was broken at the other end by Raffael, who bundled the ball in after both Casteels and Jannik Vestergaard failed to intervene.

Gladbach proceeded to control the game as they had done early on, not letting Bremen see much of the ball in their own stadium, but not posing much of a goalscoring threat either.

It was clever stuff from Favre's men, who were teasing their hosts and waiting for a chance to finish them off.

Raffael wasted it when Patrick Herrmann's cross came to him off the crossbar, but he took his next opportunity to wrap up the win in the 86th minute, converting after the ball fell to him off Andre Hahn's foot.