Eren Dinkçi has made little secret of his desire to remain at his hometown club Werder Bremen beyond the conclusion of his current loan spell. Only a month into his homecoming, the 24-year-old has already made his personal preference clear.
“I would personally have nothing against staying,” Dinkçi said during a recent media round. “Why would I? I’m at home. I simply feel most comfortable here. I know that Freiburg have a plan for me, that I still have a contract there and that it won’t be so easy to somehow get me out of there,” Dinkçi added.
Dinkçi fought for Werder return
“If it came to a transfer, I wanted to go to Werder from the beginning,” Dinkçi also noted during the round. “It was a hard fight. The patience paid off.”
There was also an important personal dimension to the move. Dinkçi’s wife is undergoing treatment for leukemia, a situation GGFN previously covered while documenting the player’s support for a DKMS donor-registration campaign. Returning to Bremen allows the couple to be closer to family and friends while his wife’s treatment continues locally.
“It was our mutual wish,” Dinkçi said. “Many people understand it as though I made this move only for her. That’s not the case. But of course it was also her wish to be close to her family and friends. The burden that we carried together can now be spread across several people. That was our goal and it’s working well.”
Dinkçi openly acknowledges that he cannot always keep football and the situation separate.
“Of course my focus drifts every now and then, and nobody can hold that against me,” he said. “But when the ball is rolling, I forget everything.”
Dinkçi returns to Bremen a different player
Dinkçi also believes the player returning to Werder is considerably more complete than the youngster who left three years ago. His breakthrough 2023/24 loan at Heidenheim produced ten Bundesliga goals and five assists. More importantly, Dinkçi credits Schmidt with substantially improving his understanding of the game.
“Everything was somewhat simply laid out for me before,” Dinkçi said. “But now I’d say that I have a good understanding of football. I went through Frank Schmidt’s school. I lived alone for a year in Heidenheim. That takes you out of your comfort zone and you get to know yourself. I’m no longer the extremely introverted Eren Dinkçi that I once was.”
His first weeks back at Werder have already provided an appropriately emotional beginning. Dinkçi scored after only four minutes of his first Bundesliga start following his return as Bremen defeated RB Leipzig 3-1.
Dinkçi believes the two returning Bremen figures can restore some of the identification between squad and club.
“I think the two of us bring a little bit of that identification back,” he said. “For this badge, I’ll definitely give more than 100 percent.”
