Stark and Rekik back in team training

The other Hertha players also enjoyed the long weekend without training. Marius Wolf and Maro Grujic, for example, enjoyed some relaxing sunbathing, while Krzysztof Piątek celebrated his first wedding anniversary. After the regeneration session on Sunday morning, Bruno Labbadia’s men used their time to rest and recharge, following a tiring but successful gameweek where they took seven points from three games. The coach welcomed his team back to Schenckendorffplatz on Tuesday afternoon. “The team have put a lot of work into the last few weeks and has improved very well. I’m happy that they have rewarded themselves with these good results. But now we need to focus on the next task and prepare ourselves as best we can,” said Labbadia, who gave extra praise to his players after winning at home to Augsburg. “The team is very driven, and willing to work on the small details. If everyone bands together and takes in their instructions, it can be fun. Improving our football together is what brings me joy as a coach!”

Training on 02.06.20

Hertha will train this week with a positive balance between fun and hard work, in order to extend the good run of form the side has been on in the last few weeks. The focus is firmly fixed on the coming weekend, when Borussia Dortmund take on the Blue-and-Whites. „Borussia Dortmund do represent a real challenge for us. They are a team with a lot of quality that we will need to work very hard to play against, just like Leipzig. But it’s also fun to compete against such teams,“ said the coach ahead of the showdown with second-placed BVB, but he remains motivated. „We’re in good form, we want to make life as difficult as possible for Dortmund and then we’ll see what happens.“
 

Two defenders return but some doubts remain

Someone who would have been looking forward to this fixture would be Marius Wolf, who is on-loan at Hertha Berlin from Borussia Dortmund. So far, it’s not known whether the midfielder will be able to reunite with his parent club. On Tuesday, Wolf, who missed all the games since the restart thanks to a foot injury, trained on his own, as didThomas Kraft (back problems) and Per Skjelbred, who had minor injuries from the last game. Both Marvin Plattenhardt and Matheus Cunha, who missed the last game with slight concussions, are still out pending further investigation before they can train with their teammates again. Contrastingly, the injury void in defence is filling up again, as Niklas Stark and Karim Rekik have recovered and could make appearances in the final five games. Whether that will be against Dortmund or in a later fixture is yet to be decided.