“Didn’t want to be in the 2nd league at all”.
©IMAGO
Mitchell Weiser’s move from Bayer Leverkusen to the then second division club Werder Bremen shortly before the transfer deadline in 2021 was born primarily out of necessity. The 30-year-old winger was sidelined by the Werkself and, after a process of weighing things up, had no other choice. That’s why he agreed to the former SVW coach Markus beginning after initial concerns.
“At 12.45 p.m. my agent called and said: ‘Werder wants you, Markus beginning wants to talk to you immediately. Do you have time?’ I stood in the Leverkusen dressing room in my underwear and didn’t know where to call him. “I then went to the infrared sauna and we talked to each other via Facetime at 1 p.m.,” Weiser gave an insight in the “11Freunde” interview.
“At the beginning asked: ‘Second League: Can you imagine that? Are you up for it, boy?’ I just thought: Not really, actually not at all! I wasn’t ready to accept that I wouldn’t get a job in the major leagues. But I had no other offer on the table. So I still said, feeling uneasy, ‘Yes, I can imagine.’ I had to make a final decision by 1:15 p.m. So I called my wife. She just said, ‘You have to do this. You have to get away from Leverkusen.’”
Weiser’s move – initially on loan – paid off; the former DFB youth international developed into a top performer on the Weser under his successor Ole Werner (“an absolute stroke of luck for me personally”) and managed to return directly to the club with the club House of Lords. “I never dreamed it would be so beautiful. Especially since we played really good football in the Bundesliga, we don’t mess around, we don’t cheat anything. I’ve always found the Weserstadion impressive, and the fans here are so positive, I’ve never experienced that anywhere before. “That’s remarkable,” said Weiser, who collected ten goals and 24 assists in 95 competitive games for the Green-Whites. The Troisdorfer did not play more games for any other club in his career.
The fact that his star was able to rise at Werder was mainly due to the fact that they no longer had any use for him at Bayer 04. What the veteran wants to have clearly noticed. His career break with the current champions initially had sporting reasons. “We had great wingers, Bailey, Diaby, Bellarabi. And I was told to give them the ball, stay back and let them do their thing. That didn’t suit my strengths at all. Little by little, my self-image was lost. If you don’t have any forward actions for six months, you become rusty. My dribbling, my intuition, there was something wrong with everything,” said Weiser, who once gained valuable experience under Pep Guardiola at FC Bayern.
Rolfes clarified: That’s why Weiser had no chance at Bayer Leverkusen
Simon Rolfes, who worked as sports director at Bayer since December 2018 before becoming sports director, explained to Weiser his gloomy outlook. The ex-professional “called me to his office in the summer of 2020 and said: ‘We’re buying another right defender, find a new club.’ I asked why, what was the problem with me. Then he talked about a specific scene, a brief moment in the DFB Cup semi-final against Saarbrücken: an assumption. He said: ‘The ball slipped under your foot.’ He was serious, it wasn’t a joke,” Weiser recalled with a laugh. “I was stunned. But I wanted to fight for my place, I felt comfortable, I was at home, I loved this team. But despite numerous absences, players who would never play there were preferred to play in my position. In some cases the team was even completely changed.”
Weiser realized that the door was closed for him “and really wanted to leave. But now it was brutally difficult to find a new club. I found the realization back then stark: If you weaken as a professional, people forget you.” According to him, what proved problematic for him was that he was not considered an easy character. “To this day, managers think I’m difficult. I only came to Hertha because I played really well in the game against Hertha. Otherwise she wouldn’t have come for me. And when things didn’t work out for me at Leverkusen, Werder was the only option there was. Nobody else wanted me.” Weiser, who wants to play for the Algeria national team in the future, admitted with a laugh that it was actually not always easy. “I know that too. And I’m proud of it,” said the right-footed man. “I am someone who stands for principles. It’s not always mainstream that questions and addresses things. That can be uncomfortable at times and make people think I’m a difficult character.”
