27 of the 28 players who travelled to Bad Ragaz were standing on the perfectly maintained pitch during a training session on Thursday afternoon. Only Nuri Sahin was busy with his rehab work with fitness coach Andreas Beck. However the midfield player’s comeback should also not be that far off.

The players describe the training programme Thomas Tuchel has put together as challenging, varied, interesting and intensive. Today memorabilia item Nr. 14938701 was out into action, a ball with size 1 and a diameter of 15.5 centimetres. Normally balls have a circumference of 69 centimetres.

So when using this small training tool sized 1, special technical skills are required when you are playing fast and direct football. Especially if you are playing “11 against 2” in a very tight space – and when Tuchel rolls in another ball to play with. Then it is all about extreme speed of action coupled with very high technical skills.

And even the football-tennis at the end of training looked so “easy”, but here the intensity and what was trying to be achieved was also very high. (br)