Reward after a double session
Our lads experienced somewhat of a novelty after the game against Bayer Leverkusen, at least in the context of the season. It was the Old Lady’s first draw of the campaign after a late goal denied us a fifth win of the season. “The lads sat down in the changing room after the game and were so frustrated, which shows a good mentality and team spirit. I had to cheer them up again,” commented Pál Dárdai. What certainly isn’t a novelty is when national teams come calling, the Bundesliga fixture schedule comes to a halt, and the training pitches are somewhat deserted. At this point, a smaller training group gets to work at Schenkendorffplatz.
Three players sit out
Wednesday morning saw the lads do a gym session before the coach led a technical session in the afternoon. After a warm-up and some technical exercises came a Rondo. “I told the team that I don’t want to see any frowning faces at training, because we want to keep performing like we did against Leverkusen until Christmas. We’ve been looking really unified and together in training for a few weeks now,” added the head coach, who had to lead team training without the presence of Lukas Klünter (recovery), Vladimír Darida and Rune Jarstein, who trained individually. Jordan Torunarigha, who came back into team training last week, continued to participate in the sessions alongside his teammates.
Our lads then played a small-sided match at the end of the session, where there was a mini-tournament amongst the squad. The team of Niklas Stark, Prince Boateng, Marco Richter, Ishak Belfodil and U19 goalkeeper Robert Kwasigroch emerged victorious, and they were awarded a miniature Santa Claus wearing Hertha colours and a blue-and-white Santa hat by assistant head coach ‘Zecke’ Neuendorf to showers of applause and laughter.
Double session and then the weekend off
The boys are scheduled in for a double session tomorrow (without the Santa hats) before another session on Friday. The Blue-Whites will not have any training sessions over the weekend, but they will have individual exercises to complete.