It was all go on the second day of training at the Estadio Municipal in Marbella as the BVB first team underwent two demanding training sessions. Two long-term injury absentees spoke about their fitness levels, while on the pitch a second Austrian was issuing the instructions.

Jan-Philip Kirschke reporting from Marbella

It was straight down to business for Borussia in Marbella on Thursday. With the sun shining down and the temperature at a spring-like 18 degrees, coach Peter Stöger oversaw two intensive training sessions. A behind-closed-doors session in the morning was primarily dedicated to the tactical, with the emphasis in the afternoon more on the technical.

Manfred Schmid steps in

Stöger finally had Manfred Schmid, his long-term assistant, by his side on Thursday. The Austrian, who once partnered the new BVB boss in midfield back in their Austria Vienna days, had to take it relatively easy in the first weeks since Stöger arrived at Borussia Dortmund, having recently undergone a hip operation. But four weeks on from the surgery, the 46-year-old has travelled to Andalucia raring to go and today took charge of a number of exercises.

Media rounds at midday

Among those in the thick of the action were Gonzalo Castro and Lukasz Piszczek. While the former believes himself to be at "around 60 or 70 percent" and is expecting to have his training load gradually increased in the coming days, the latter has declared himself to be back to full fitness already. "I can go into challenges now, so that means I'm back to 100 percent," he explained at midday to journalists accompanying the team. "The only remaining question is my stamina. But I've worked a lot on this in recent weeks and I'm optimistic."

Schmelzer sits out

Mario Götze and Marco Reus, who are both undergoing rehabilitation programmes, are continuing to make progress and completed parts of the team training session on Thursday. The situation is currently less rosy for Marcel Schmelzer, however. The BVB captain had to withdraw from the second session yesterday due to calf complaints, was unable to train at all today and now needs to assess on a daily basis what he can manage. Sebastian Rode, a long-term injury absentee, again completed his individual programme on Thursday but is still with the team in Marbella.

New editions of the BVB Quiz Taxi

In addition to the media rounds that took place, there were some additional engagements between the sessions for some of the players. For example, the "BVBtotal!" team met Mahmoud Dahoud for an interview at Marbella beach next to the team hotel, while Nobby Dickel is back on tour too. Driving his Opel Grandland X, he picked up his first participants for the popular BVB Quiz Taxi. The videos will be uploaded onto BVBtotal! shortly.