Foals return to training

After completing performance tests yesterday, the Foals trained on Tuesday afternoon for the first time ahead of the second half of the season.

23 players, including Maximilian Brüll and Semir Telalovic from the U23s, trained for 90 minutes in the cold. Following the warm-up and some passing drills, the Foals worked on various other drills throughout the session.  Alassane Plea, Conor Noß, Tobias Sippel were all back in training, having all missed the final game before the winter break (4-2 win over BVB) due to illness or injury. Hannes Wolf, a long-term absentee, also returned. “Hannes is doing really well, he’s fully training with the team now. The plan is for him to be part of every training session from now. That’s obviously good news for both him and us,” explained Daniel Farke afterwards.

Farke: “Glad to be back”

Borussia have had around four weeks to recharge the batteries before preparations for 2023 now begin. “I think taking a break after the last Bundesliga game against Dortmund was a good decision. We’ve now got five and a half weeks to prepare for the final 19 games of the season,” said Farke. “We’re glad to be back and trained well at a high intensity today. We’ve got a good group for training and were therefore able to start working on a few things and start building up our fitness levels and sharpness again.”

Florian Neuhaus completed the first part of the training session with his teammates, before working individually afterwards. “We’re being a bit careful with Flo. We will slowly start to integrate him into team training. It’s hard to say when he’ll be able to train fully with the rest of the lads, but he’s on the right track. It currently looks like he’ll be available again for our next league game.”

Right-back Stefan Lainer didn’t train after recently undergoing an operation to remove a plate in his ankle. “This was a necessary operation and had been planned for a while now. It’s all healed up and we expect him to return to team training at the end of this week or next week at the latest,” reported Farke.

World Cup players set to return soon

Also absent were Gladbach’s representatives at the World Cup: Yann Sommer, Nivo Elvedi, Ko Itakura, Joe Scally and Jonas Hofmann, as well as Marcus Thuram, who takes on Morocco with the French national team tomorrow (20:00 CET) for a place in the final. Farke said: “We’re working individually on the return of those who went to the World Cup. The first players to return in the next couple of weeks will be Jonas Hofmann and Joe Scally, followed by Ko Itakura, Yann Sommer and Nico Elvedi. As for Marcus Thuram, we will have to wait and see how long he will be out there. All the lads will be getting an appropriate break, in order to be physically and mentally recovered from the tournament, but, on the other hand, to also be back early enough to ensure they’re well prepared for the rest of the season.”

The Foals are set to train twice on Wednesday and Friday (11:15 CET and 15:45 CET on the pitch and in the performance centre respectively). On Thursday, they’re set to train at 15:00 CET and at 11:15 CET on Saturday and Sunday on the training pitch at BORUSSIA-PARK, in addition to which they will play the friendly “Legends of the Park” game on Saturday evening at 19:00 CET.