Pre-Season Friendly: Rot-Weiss Erfurt 0 Werder Bremen 6

A Nils Petersen double led Werder Bremen to a convincing 6-0 friendly victory over Rot-Weiss Erfurt on Thursday.

The 24-year-old opened the scoring at the Stadion Essen with a calm finish after rounding the goalkeeper before Mehmet Ekici doubled the visitors’ advantage before the end of the first half.

Werder needed just two minutes to get on the scoresheet in the second half as Eljero Elia headed home, and goals from Sebastian Proedl and Petersen within two minutes of each other saw the Bundesliga side cruising with an hour gone.

But there was still time for one more goal, as substitute Marko Arnautovic wrapped up the scoring in the 89th minute.

Robin Dutt named a strong team ahead of Bremen’s eighth fixture of pre-season, with just three games remaining for his squad to get up to speed ahead of the new campaign.

Werder subsequently rewarded the nature of his selection as they dominated the opening stages before Petersen latched on to a Cedric Makiadi pass and stroked the ball into an empty net after leaving the goalkeeper stranded.

Dutt’s men would be forced to wait for their next breakthrough, but were rewarded just before half-time when Makiadi again turned provider for Ekici to score.

Elia’s goal followed not long after the restart, the Dutch winger heading home after Petersen had been thwarted by the woodwork.

The post and crossbar would almost do the same for Proedl in the 64th minute but the Austrian’s second attempted header was adjudged to have crossed the line.

And only two minutes later Petersen would have his second as he latched on to a Makiaidi long pass to score.

Werder’s superiority had gone without question throughout, but they would have one final chance to underline their extra class when Arnautovic, on in place of Zlatko Junuzovic, grabbed a goal in the final minute.