On 29 July, Werder Bremen travelled to face their last warm-up opponent of the month, Paderborn from the Bundesliga.

In this game, Coach Schaff did not adjust the line-up of the midfield, but focused on adjusting the arrangement of the backline.

Paderborn finished fifth in the Bundesliga last season and are not far from the promotion zone.

So their club president is ambitious and wants to make his dream come true.

To this end, they have made a lot of reinforcements this season and bought a lot of strong players.

Therefore, in terms of overall strength, they are stronger than the previous warm-up opponent Cottages.

Werder Bremen and Paderborn are both weak teams in attack and defense, and this game is called a Mars hitting the Earth.

In the 13th minute of the first half, Paderborn, who was playing at home, scored first.

Just five minutes later, Werder Bremen took advantage of a counter-attack to score a goal to get back on the scoresheet.

In the 28th minute, Werder Bremen scored with a direct shot from a free kick in front, and the score became 2:1.

In first-half stoppage time, Werder Bremen had a great chance but De Bruyne's shot bounced off the post.

After the break, the two sides changed sides and fought again.

In the 53rd minute, substitute Lin Quan burst into the opponent's penalty area and was tripped by the defender, and the referee awarded a penalty.

Because captain Fritz, the team's first penalty taker, was rested, Schaff asked Lin Quan to take the penalty himself.

The penalty kick is a test of the player's psychological quality, and he wants to take this opportunity to observe Lin Quan's ability to resist pressure and psychological quality.

Lin Quan has eight years of career experience with Messi, and he has long been accustomed to things like penalty kicks.

He stood at the penalty spot, observed the goalkeeper's position and started running.

When approaching the football, he suddenly shook the goalkeeper with the change of rhythm, and when the opponent subconsciously made a save, he kicked the football.

Seeing that Lin Quan's position on the ball was on his toes, Coach Schaaf stood up suddenly.

This kid is too bold to dare to take a penalty in this way!

The ball jumps high, not fast, and arcs high.

Leapfrogging the top of the goalkeeper who had just made a save and flew steadily into the goal.

Lin Quan scored a goal with a spoon penalty, and the score was rewritten to 3:1.

"This kid, his psychological quality is too good, right? The average player should play as he is safe, but he turned out to be good, and he actually used a spoon to take a penalty......"

Seeing the ball go in, Coach Schaff breathed a sigh of relief.

After sitting down, I couldn't help but complain to a few colleagues around me.

"Well, I said, is it possible that the spoon penalty is the safest way for this kid to deal with it?"

Henenbach's words silenced everyone...

In the following dozens of minutes, neither side was able to rewrite the score.

In the end, the score of 3:1 remained until the end, and Werder Bremen won three consecutive warm-up matches.

And Lin Quan, who played in all three games, also got three affordable points.

Unfortunately, the team did not have a warm-up game before the end of the second phase of training.

In other words, he didn't have a game to play for most of the next half a month, which made him a little melancholy.

It's still far away from the day when you can buy top talents!

……

At the headquarters of the German Football Association, officials of the German Football Association were discussing with sponsor telecommunications company T-Home Salary the number of team invitations for this season's Deutsche Telekom Cup.

The Deutsche Telekom Cup was founded in 2009 as the German League Cup.

The event is sponsored by T-Home, a well-known telecommunications company, and is held once a year.

There are four teams participating in each competition, with the exception of last season's Bundesliga winners and runners-up with a fixed invitation.

They will also invite one from each of the mid-table teams and the relegation teams.

Because there are fewer teams participating, the rules of the game are simple.

The Deutsche Telekom Cup is played in two semi-finals by random draw, with the winning team advancing to the final and the losing two teams playing the third and fourth place finals, for a total of four matches.

Therefore, the prize money is not high, and the prize money for the winner is only 300,000 euros.

However, it is still attractive for the invited teams to have such a high-level competition before the start of the season to test the success of their respective teams' recruitment.

In order not to affect the team's preparation, the Telecom Cup was relatively short, with four matches scheduled to be completed in two days.

And the time of a single game is also limited, and there are only 30 minutes in both halves.

If it's still a draw after 60 minutes, then go straight to the penalty shoot-out.

Because of this special competition system, the Telecom Cup has always been frequent.

Even giants like Bayern Munich often overturn, and since the establishment of the Deutsche Telekom Cup, the Bundesliga giants have not won a championship.

This season, the first three invited teams in the Telecom Cup have been confirmed, namely last season's Bundesliga champions Borussia Dortmund and runners-up Bayern Munich.

The team in the relegation zone chose Hamburg, who were relegated by one point last season.

All three teams are easy to pick, but who is the best choice for the mid-table team?

The opinion of the German Football Association and the sponsors on this issue is not quite aligned.

According to the German Football Association, there are a total of 18 teams in the Bundesliga, and the mid-table teams must be ninth or tenth.

And these two teams are Werder Bremen in ninth place and Nuremberg in tenth place.

However, the sponsors disliked the small size of the cities where the two teams were located, which was not conducive to promotion, so they wanted to choose Stuttgart from the big city.

Stuttgart is the sixth largest city in Germany, with a larger population and greater business value.

The Telecom Cup is played here, and the advertising effect on sponsors is stronger.

The two sides were at loggerheads, and the German Football Association insisted that the rules could not be broken.

Football is a national sport in Germany, and its commercial value is huge, so there is no need to worry about no sponsors.

The reason why I cooperated with T-Home was because they were local companies and had a pleasant experience in the past, so I chose them.

If they get carried away and dictate the work of the Football Association, then the German Football Association doesn't mind changing sponsors, such as Volkswagen.

As soon as he heard this, T-Home immediately relented and expressed respect for the Football Association's choice.

Seeing that the other party compromised, the German Football Association also sold face to the other party, and chose Bremen, which is a little larger, in Werder Bremen and Nuremberg.

Soon, an invitation from the German Football Association was sent to the club's head coach Schaff.

Seeing this invitation, Schaaf was a little hesitant:

To accept it or not to accept it?

Accept the invitation for a chance to win the €300,000 prize and get a piece of the ticket sales.

However, this can disrupt the team's training schedule.

And two games in two consecutive days is also a test for the players.

The veteran players may be fine, but it's a big challenge for the younger players, especially those who haven't played in the Bundesliga.

In particular, they are likely to play against the likes of Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund.

If they are accidentally beaten by the other party, then the confidence they have accumulated from their previous three consecutive victories may be completely zero.

So, instead of making a decision on his own, he gathered members of the coaching staff and called Lin Quan and De Bruyne, two of the best young players, to ask for their opinions.

As soon as he heard that there were still games to play, and that he was the champion and runner-up of the Bundesliga, Lin Quan's eyes were straight.

It's worth two points!

Go, must go!