Bremen injuries fail to dampen Schaaf's spirits

SV Werder Bremen may have a host of injuries to contend with but coach Thomas Schaaf insists his side will not play on the defensive against an FC Internazionale Milano team looking to put Saturday's Serie A defeat at AS Roma behind them. Home coach Rafael Benítez too will have to make changes from the side that kicked off their defence of the UEFA Champions League title with a 2-2 draw at FC Twente, but he is confident Inter have the "right mentality" to pick up their first win in Group A.

Rafael Benítez, Inter coach
I usually take a look at the standings and I don't think Bremen are facing a crisis. They have a few players out, but so do we. We drew our first game, but I don't think there's more pressure on us; there's always pressure on my team. We are all in the same situation in our group, we all have the same points. My team has a lot of attacking players so it is not always easy to find a good balance and we conceded a late goal on Saturday, which we should be angry about. 

It hasn't always been easy to find the net this season. We have to train harder and I'm sure we will become more precise in the future. We are not nervous, it's just that we are Inter, a big team, so everybody talks about us. When you don't win people always try to look for problems. But we have the right mentality and our squad is tight-knit.

Thomas Schaaf, Bremen coach
It's not easy with all these injured players, I don't remember ever having so many important players out before. But we aren't thinking about that too much, we have always been competitive and it will be the same again tomorrow. We know how good Inter were last season; they won everything they could. We are looking forward to meeting them.

They are a great team with the same qualities es ever. Inter will probably try to score from the start, but we don't want to just sit back, we want to show we can be tough opponents as well. We wanted to win the first match of the group [2-2 against Tottenham Hotspur FC], but we are quite happy with a draw in the end.

Team news
• Inter
Diego Milito (thigh) remains a doubt despite training with his team-mates, as does Goran Pandev who sat out Tuesday's training session with a knee problem. With midfielder Thiago Motta, defenders Marco Materazzi and Javier Zanetti all out, Benítez will hope to have Walter Samuel (thigh) back, but the centre-back did not train with the squad on Tuesday.

• Werder
Schaaf, who is already without Naldo and Sebastian Boenisch (both knee), also lost Clemens Fritz, Torsten Frings (both thigh) and Claudio Pizarro (hip) during Saturday's 3-2 derby victory against Hamburger SV. Petri Pasanen has travelled to Milan, but remains a doubt: "I'm not sure if Pasanen will play, we will see tomorrow if he's ready," Schaaf said.

Weekend results
25/09/10 AS Roma 1-0 Inter
(Vučinić 90+1)
Mirko Vučinić's late header condemned Inter to a first Serie A loss since this fixture last season, on 27 March.

25/09/10 Bremen 3-2 Hamburger SV
(Demel og 25, Almeida 28 85; Van Nistelrooy 59, Pitroipa 63)
Frings made his 300th league appearance for Bremen in the northern derby, but both he and Claudio Pizarro were injured in what was Bremen's first win in five matches in all competitions.

Did you know?
On their most recent visit to San Siro in 2008/09, Schaaf's men recovered a two-goal deficit to hold AC Milan 2-2 and win a UEFA Cup round of 32 tie on away goals. Pizarro struck twice, giving him four goals from six visits to the stadium.

See the match background for more information.