You could guess that this bar-football mentality would not work. To Assauer's credit, he stayed after the 1980 relegation, the worst season Werder Bremen had ever played in the Bundesliga. The team had conceded 93 goals, including eleven against champions Bayern Munich alone.\n\nAssauer said he had helped mess it up and would help repair it.
Club president Dr. Franz Boehmert later put it even more bluntly: the club had lain in a coma.\n\nHe also understood very well that in the second division people trained and were paid as if they were in the first. Assauer therefore drew a wage ceiling: no player would receive more than 200,000 marks.