The summer break is over, and with just six weeks to go before the first match of the season, Pellegrino Matarazzo’s men have already had their first training season. “It was a good feeling to get back on the pitch after a five-week break,” the head coach said.
“Even before training began, you could sense the extremely positive energy among the lads and see how keen they were to get back to work. And then they went out and showed that on the pitch.”
There were 29 players in total, three of them goalkeepers, with new signings Waldemar Anton and Konstantinos Mavropanos making their first appearances on Monday afternoon – albeit on the practice pitch – in the famous hooped jersey.
While the injured Atakan Karazor and Maxime Awoudja were not involved in the session, Marc Oliver Kempf and Tanguy Coulibaly took part in the warm-up element along with the team before working individually on their respective returns to fitness.
Borna Sosa is already further down that path after missing the last nine matches of the previous campaign due to heavy bruising on the knee. He has now fully recovered from that injury and managed to complete the full 90-minute session, as did Erik Thommy, who has returned from his loan spell, along with Gregor Kobel and Pascal Stenzel, who were both on loan at VfB last term but are now on the books for good.
“We’ve taken the necessary steps by signing up the players who were here on loan, and getting new recruits,” said sporting director Sven Mislintat. “I think that we now have a very balanced squad which has both talent and depth. The most important aspect is of course the quality of the players, and that’s clear for all to see.”
There will be another six training sessions across the next four days before the first friendly of pre-season, when the lads from Canstatt will take on SV Sandhausen at the VfB Club Centre at 11:00 CEST on Saturday. Due to current restrictions, the match and all training sessions will take place behind closed doors.
