Werner was dismissed despite having led RB Leipzig back into the Champions League in his first season in charge, orchestrating a major squad overhaul and playing a significant role in the club's expected record-breaking sale of Yan Diomande. Yet he was let go without the private conversations he had been promised.
"The last few weeks — and one has to be this self-critical — were anything but optimal, simply bad. Full stop," Schäfer told Bild.
He expanded on the sequence of events that led to the dismissal, acknowledging that a longer private conversation had been planned before Werner's holiday but never took place before the situation became public.
"That in between, much of this played out for various reasons in public, was absolutely unworthy of Ole Werner both as a person and as a coach," Schäfer said. "I am truly very sorry about that. Without question."
Replacing Werner is Martín Demichelis, the Argentine who oversaw exactly 12 matches in European professional football — at Mallorca, whom he could not save from La Liga relegation — before being appointed at Leipzig. Demichelis is a close associate of Jürgen Klopp, who serves as Red Bull's head of global soccer, and also holds significant managerial experience in Argentina and Mexico.
Schäfer backed the appointment unreservedly.
"We want to win matches," he said. "That goes via a content component, via a physical component. And there is this enthusiasm, this fire, this passion. Martín unites all of that. His fundamental football stands for incredibly high intensity, high pressing and early ball recoveries. A football attack mode."
Werner's exit and Demichelis's arrival represent a sharp contrast in style and profile — a departure that was handled poorly by the club's own admission, and an appointment that raises questions that only results will answer.