First test under Daniel Farke on Friday evening

The Foals are set to take on Rot-Weiß Essen in their first friendly of the pre-season tomorrow evening (Friday 1st July 19:00 CEST). It will be Daniel Farke’s first game in charge of Gladbach.

For five days now, the Foals have been putting in the hard work ahead of the new season. The health and performance tests have been completed and there have been some demanding training sessions. “In the first few days of training, which have been very intense, the boys have shown they are in good shape. We have also done a lot of theoretical work with the team in the tactical sessions,” said new head coach Daniel Farke.

The first friendly under the new head coach is on the agenda tomorrow evening, when the foals take on third division side Rot-Weiß Essen at Stadion an der Hafenstraße (19:00 CEST). “The first friendly is coming at just the right time. It is a welcome change from the daily training routine and it will be a good test for us,” explained Farke.

International players still on extended break

Rot-Weiß Essen are back in the 3.Bundesliga after gaining promotion from the Regionalliga West last season and have already been in pre-season training for two weeks. “This is certainly the biggest test of Essen’s summer. They will want to pick up some confidence for the new season and continue the excitement after their promotion campaign,” said Farke. He continued: “But we of course want to present ourselves in the best possible way and develop that hunger to play well and pick up positive results. The first game is always is important as it allows the players to get a feel for it again. But we know that the legs will be a bit heavy because we have worked very hard this week and we are still missing some of the international players.”

Gladbach will have to do without Yann Sommer, Stefan Lainer, Ramy Bensebaini, Joe Scally, Nico Elvedi, Hannes Wolf, Manu Koné, Jonas Hofmann and Breel Embolo in Essen, but Farke will have some youth players to choose from.

“We will definitely play a few young players. It is a good opportunity for them to present themselves. Especially as right now it doesn’t make sense to give individual players too much game time. We don’t want to run the risk of picking up injuries. Therefore, we will decide sensibly and spontaneously who will play,” said Farke.