Defeat has silver lining for Allofs

Klaus Allofs hailed Werder Bremen's 3-2 Champions League loss at Sampdoria on Tuesday night as "the most beautiful defeat you can imagine".

Having gone into the play-off round second-leg tie at the Stadio Luigi Ferraris 3-1 up, Bremen were on the brink of elimination after a double from Giampaolo Pazzini and Antonio Cassano's 85th-minute strike put the Serie A side in front of aggregate.

But Markus Rosenberg levelled with seconds to go, before Claudio Pizarro won the tie for the Germans in extra-time to send them into the group stages.

"Was that really a defeat?" Werder sporting director Allofs told the club website. "Then it was the most beautiful defeat that you can imagine. We are still in the competition."

Rosenberg came off the bench to help rescue his side's Champions League campaign - and then revealed he hoped to take no further part in the competition.

The Swede, who was introduced in the 72nd minute, is looking to leave the Weserstadion before the end of the transfer window in search of regular first-team football.

"I have told the club that I would like to transfer out because I want to play," Rosenberg said. "It would be a dream to stay at Werder and play regularly. But it doesn't look like that at the moment. Now I will wait and see if an offer comes in until the end of the transfer period in the coming weeks."

Allofs added: "The performance was not a surprise for me because Markus played very well in pre-season after he struggled for quite a while. He had a poor year last season. After that he said he would like to leave us. We agreed - if a fair offer comes in. And we cannot continue to change our personnel plans from one week to the next.

"But it's also clear that if he is on the squad and is put onto the pitch that he is a member of the team who has our trust. We will keep him if no offer comes in. But I'm certain that Markus showed again many teams could use him."