Istanbul - Werder Bremen captain Frank Baumann was Tuesday hoping to lead the team to a second European trophy in the club's history in the UEFA Cup final against Shakhtar Donetsk in Istanbul. The 33-year-old midfielder trained Tuesday evening in the Sukru Saracoglu Stadium in a boost for coach Thomas Schaaf who has lost Brazilian playmaker Diego through suspension for Wednesday's final.
Bremen are also without the suspended striker Hugo Almeida and injured defender Per Mertesacker against the Ukrainians.
Baumann has laboured under a groin strain but is now expected to fill a defensive midfield role behind Torsten Frings and Mesut Ozil.
Bremen are seeking to capture a first European trophy for a German side for eight years, their second since a European Cup Winners' Cup win in 1992 and the first of what could be a cup double this season.
Schaaf said at the stadium Tuesday evening: "This is a very special game. Reaching the final is already something special but of course now we want the trophy."
"Missing Diego, Mertesecker and Almeida hurts but we want to use all of our squad."
The Bundesliga club can put a disappointing league season behind them in Istanbul and also have the German Cup final coming up in Berlin at the end of the month.
Frings said: "We had a disappointing season but with the win we can save the season."
Meanwhile Shakhtar coach Mircea Lucescu said he was hoping to see his side become the first from Ukraine to lift a European title since the break up of the Soviet Union as well as win a first European title for the club.
"We deserve to be here and we are hoping to return to Donetsk with the cup," the 63-year-old Romanian said.
Lucescu took over the coaching reins at Shakhtar in 2004 from German Bernd Schuster and since then he has managed to bring success to the club, which is being funded mainly by billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, who is also the club's president.
Three Ukrainian titles and two cup wins have enhanced Lucescu's international standing even further.
"Usually I try to create teams from scratch. In Donetsk I was told to create a new, young team," he said.
Lucescu is hoping that some of the locals in the stadium will still remember him from his time in Istanbul, where he coached Besiktas and Galatasaray.
"This is a city I love. My four years here brought a lot of success and happiness and Istanbul deserves to be the final UEFA Cup final venue. I'm proud my side have won the right to play it, too."
Although Lucescu is quietly confident ahead of the game, he predicts a tough match against the German side.
"It will be a match between an offensive force, Bremen they are a very good attacking team and a skilful, resilient Shakhtar," he said.
"We have a young side and naturally they are experiencing all the emotions you'd expect with a final; we just need to control them," he said.
Meanwhile Shakhtar will have the support of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko who will attend the match.
The winner teams will receive a 2.5-million-euro bonus while Shakhtar's players can expect to be rewarded handsomely by Akhmetov who has has already splashed out huge bonuses for Shakhtar's defeat of Ukrainian arch-rival Dynamo Kiev in the semi-final.
