If you had asked 100 German football fans in 2018 if they knew about SV Elversberg, the majority would have had no clue about the small club from the Saarland, a region located near the French border in Germany.
In October 2018, the club made two huge decisions that would shape its future.
Nils-Ole Book was appointed sporting director at the club, and the new sporting director hired Horst Steffen as a new coach.
Steffen was a professional player himself, having made a considerable number of appearances in the Bundesliga.
Hed already had a decent amount of coaching experience, starting out as a youth coach for MSV Duisburg and Borussia Mönchengladbach before coaching multiple clubs in the 3. Liga in Germany, with a rather bleak amount of success.
With their new sporting director and coach, Elversberg established itself as a top team in the Regionalliga.
They finally got promoted to the 3. Liga in 2022, instantly winning the league in their first season there.
They then got a promotion to the 2. Bundesliga, where they finished in third place and lost in the relegation play-off this season.
What’s even more impressive is how they have done it.
There were no major spending or signings, and many players from the Regionalliga team are still part of today’s squad.
With a very young team, Steffen still managed to have his team play breathtaking, attacking football.
Elversberg’s strategy revolved around Steffen developing players and working with young players.
Nick Woltemade, Paul Wanner, and, more recently, Muhammed Damar, Elias Baum, and Fisnik Asllani all came to Elversberg as loan players with little to no experience in professional football and quickly developed into top players.
This success did not go unnoticed.
After a very successful season in the Bundesliga, Werder Bremen and their head coach, Ole Werner, decided to part ways due to different opinions about the clubs future.
Werner wanted instant success, and Werder’s board wants to build around their academy players and young talents.
Therefore, Werder Bremen’s sporting director, Clemens Fritz, decided to bring in Horst Steffen to guide the club into its future revolving around their talented young players.
In this tactical analysis and head coach analysis, we will examine what Horst Steffen did at Elversberg, how it will fit at Werder Bremen, and what we can expect from the team going into next season.
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Horst Steffen Style Of Build Up
Looking at what Werder Bremen did this season, it was rather impressive how diverse their approach to games was.
Ole Werner was a great coach in terms of pragmatism.
He was always able to tweak his system and approach according to his teams situation and their opponent without compromising their own identity.
Horst Steffen is an entirely different type of coach.
He has a clear idea of how he wants to play football and expects his team to follow his plan and principles even against stronger opponents.
One significant change that the new coach will bring to Bremen is the switch to a back-four formation, which differs from the back-three formation that Werder Bremen has used under Ole Werner for the past three and a half years.
While Werder had some situations in which they would shape up with a back-four as well in the build-up, it will still be a significant change for the team.
In the picture above, we can see the shape and structure that Horst Steffen prefers while building out from the back.
Steffen usually lines up his team in a 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2 formation, and it’s pretty obvious in all four phases of the game.
Elversberg inv
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