Small group starts training – players return from international duty

The Foals started a new training week on Tuesday. Head coach Adi Hütter was only joined by a small group of players, with players away on international duty returning to BORUSSIA-PARK over the course of the week.

The first two international players are back in Mönchengladbach. Denis Zakaria was shown a yellow card in Switzerland’s 2-0 win over Northern Ireland (his second in two games) and is now suspended for Tuesday’s game in Lithuania (20:45 CEST). Because of this, “Zak” returned early to Germany, as did Ramy Bensebaini. The Algerian travelled to meet up with the national team last week despite being injured (foot), but did not play in their dominant 6-1 win over Niger in the second stage of World Cup qualifying.

The left-back will now continue his rehab at BORUSSIA-PARK. “We’ll have to wait and see whether Ramy can take any part in team training this week. I still don’t know whether he’ll be able to play on Saturday,” said Hütter. Marcus Thuram also trained individually on Tuesday morning. “Marcus is already well on his way. His rehab is going well and I hope that he can return partially to train with the team next week,” said Hütter. “But we still need to be patient with him.”

Patience will be key for the coach this week as he waits for the rest of the squad to return. Matthias Ginter, Jonas Hofmann and Florian Neuhaus will all be back in Mönchengladbach on Wednesday having secured their spot at the World Cup with Germany yesterday evening. “Most of the international players have matches today and will get back on Thursday,” emphasised Hütter, who was still only able to welcome a small group to the training ground for the first session of the week on Tuesday morning. “For clubs that have a lot of internationals, the first game after the international break is never easy.” The Borussia coach’s full focus is now on the upcoming Bundesliga game on Saturday evening (18:30 CEST) against VfB Stuttgart.

“VfB have a few players out with Corona at the moment so we will have to see who is available for them. Stuttgart can be very hard to play against. They have a good system, but did not get off to the best possible start and their performances have been inconsistent,” said Hütter. “They are doing a good job in Stuttgart despite everything. They have a lot of talented players and are very quick in transition, so we will have to take care at both ends of the pitch. We absolutely want to carry on playing as we have been and need to match that with our performance.”