Summer Madness

All is not well at Werder Bremen. Last year's squad was woefully inadequate, and management has had trouble rebooting with the players they want. So how did bosses decided to tackle the problem?

They forbade players from getting new tattoos.

Bremen sports director Klaus Allofs pointed up the health risks of getting that special symbol or image etched on one's epidermis, when he announced the ban earlier this month. Ironically, the catalyst for the decision was a player at Werder's Northern German rivals Hamburg. Midfielder Eljero Elia missed significant parts of last season because of an infection picked up while having his upper body tattoos completed.

Predictably, the ban hasn't gone down all that well among Bremen's more colourful stars. Werder forward and number-one head-case Marko Arnautovic gave an interview to an Austrian newspaper in which he was quoted as saying that not only did he like tattoos, he required them, together with silicone-inflated breasts, in his dream woman.

Arnautovic, one of the most disappointing new arrivals in the Bundesliga last season, had promised to mend his ways ahead of 2011-12. He's not off to a particularly good start.

Playing well and going soon

One player who has allegedly cleaned up his attitude is Wolfsburg playmaker Diego. Unfortunately for all concerned, the change of heart has come far too late.

Word coming out of the Wolves training camp is that the Brazilian is really giving it his all. But they would say that. Wolfsburg coach Felix Magath has ruled out the prospect of Diego ever playing for the first team again, after the playmaker walked out on the squad on the final day of last season because he wasn't in the starting eleven.

And to underline that his mind is mind up, Magath has had the official team photo taken without Diego.

The Wolves are hoping to recoup at least six or seven million euros in a transfer fee. But other clubs haven't exactly been lining up to take the oversensitive diva and his hefty salary off Wolfsburg's hands, despite his purported revival in training camp.

Filing suit to don the kit

Speaking of controversial players practicing with the first teams, former Eintracht Frankfurt captain Ioannis Amanatidis tried to do precisely that - with the help of the courts.

The Greek forward feuded with coaches and management last season and fell out of favor with Frankfurt, who got relegated. New coach Armin Veh has said he's no more welcome at Eintracht than Diego is with the Wolves and has relegated the striker to working out with the amateurs.

Amanitidis did not take that lying down, filing a lawsuit against his employer and accusing them of breach of contract.

The funny thing is that he may have a legal point. Frankfurt's developmental side is officially an amateur club, and the court may well have decided that as a professional “Ama” has a right to practice with other pros.

Luckily, just before their day in court, the two sides realized the best thing for everyone was for the striker to move on. Amanatidis’ contract was terminated by mutual consent. But after two reconstructive surgeries on his right knee, and with an estimated yearly salary of 3 million euros, the Greek striker is about as attractive an investment right now as Greek government bonds.

He'll be back

By contrast, veteran midfielder Ze Roberto has always been a model citizen. In his long career with Leverkusen, Bayern and Hamburg, he set the record for most Bundesliga games played by a foreigner.

Now at the age of 37, he's signed a nest-egg contract with Qatari side Al Gharafa Sports Club. But just two days after inking that deal, he announced he's not done with German football.

The Brazilian told Bild newspaper that he has “a firm agreement with a top club in Germany” to return for the 2012-13 - despite his two-year deal in Qatar.

That raises two questions. Is Ze simply planning to flee in the middle of the night, traversing the desert and then hopping a boat across the Mediterranean back to Germany?

And which “top club” is prepared to shell out the big bucks and to weather the hassle attached to a midfielder who by that time will be 38?

Of course, we at DW Sports would love to see Ze, arguably the best at his position in the Bundesliga over the first decade of the millennium, back on these shores.

But something about this report makes us think that either the Brazilian was having a bit of fun at Bild's expense, or trying to help out a sports reporter friend in desperate need of a headline to spice up the summer doldrums.

Author: Jefferson Chase
Editor: Matt Hermann