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Supercup 1988: Bremen win on the road

After seven years in the hot seat at Werder Bremen and two close runs in 1983 and 1986, Otto Rehhagel finally hit the jackpot in 1988, leading the Hanseatic port side to the Bundesliga title.

It was a success built above all on a watertight defence, with keeper Oliver Reck having to pick the ball out of the net just 22 times all season. That figure would stand as a record until 2008, when FC Bayern went one better, conceding a mere 21.

New strike force for Frankfurt

In the Supercup, the newly-crowned champions were up against DFB Cup winners Eintracht Frankfurt, coached by Karl-Heinz Feldkamp, who had laboured to a 1-0 victory over VfL Bochum in the final. After just a year in the Bundesliga, match-winner Lajos Detari subsequently moved on to Olympiakos Piräus for a then-record fee of 17 million marks.

Eintracht invested the proceeds in strikers Heinz Gründel and Jörn Andersen. With the match being held in the Waldstadion for the second successive year, the new men got to enjoy home advantage in their first competitive game of any consequence for the club. Not that it did Frankfurt much good, as they succumbed 2-0 in front of another sparse crowd of just 20,500.

Experience pays off

With the exception of Rune Bratseth, Rehhagel kept faith with his tried-and-tested title-winning side, sending an all-German starting XI onto the pitch. They proved to have too much firepower for the hosts, with goals from Karl-Heinz Riedle midway through the first half and 38-year-old veteran Manfred Burgsmüller, on as a second-half substitute, in the dying seconds.

Bremen went on to enjoy a season of mixed fortunes, eventually finishing third in the league and losing out to Borussia Dortmund in the final of the DFB Cup. On the international stage, they racked up a memorable 5-0 win against East German champions Dynamo Berlin in the European Cup, but were unable to leave their mark on the latter stages of the competition.

The new-look Eintracht meanwhile fell well short of their own expectations, to the extent of finding themselves in the thick of a battle to avoid the drop. With Jörg Berger by this stage in charge, they finished 16th and went into the relegation/promotion play-off, where they finally managed to secure their top-flight status, with difficulty, against 1. FC Saarbrücken.

Tobias Gonscherowski

SV Werder Bremen - Eintracht Frankfurt 2-0 (1-0)

Bremen: Reck - Sauer - Borowka, Kutzop, Otten (Meier 46') - Schaaf, Votava, Hermann - Neubarth, Riedle, Ordenewitz (Burgsmüller 46') Coach: Rehhagel

Frankfurt: Stein - Binz - Sievers, Körbel, Studer - Schulz, Hobday (Roth 46'), Schlindwein, Heidenreich (Balzis 57') - Andersen, Gründel Coach: Feldkamp

Goals: 1-0 Riedle (24'), 2-0 Burgsmüller (90')

Attendance: 20.500 in Frankfurt.

Quelle: Bundesliga.de, mehr unter http://www.bundesliga.de

Thursday, 08.07.2010, 21:14