The preparations for the 2021/22 season are picking up momentum. The performance diagnostic tests were followed up with the first training session of the new campaign on Sunday. The Black & Yellows were put through their paces by new head coach Marco Rose for around one and a half hours at the training ground in Brackel.

Goals, poles, training dummies – everything was already in place when the BVB players took to the pitch for the first team training session of the season. The small group in attendance comprised of 10 outfield players and two goalkeepers, among them the two youth players Nnamdi Collins and Göktan Gürpüz plus the returning Marius Wolf. 

"I'm delighted to be getting under way," said the new head coach Marco Rose in his opening speech, in which he also introduced his assistants Alexander Zickler and Rene Maric as well as the athletics coach Patrick Eibenberger. Rose also went into the plan for the training session that followed.

After the warm-up, the BVB coach put his players through passing drills to give them a feel for the ball again after the summer break. Rose and Zickler guided the players in two separate groups. The subsequent programme included game scenarios, first in a rondo with three players in the middle and then a match without goalkeepers in which the players were allowed a maximum of two touches. Finally, it was five-on-five with a free man and small goals. Rose offered corrections and gave advice from the sidelines and talked to individual players during the breaks.

"It was an intense first training session, but that's the way it has to be," explained Julian Brandt. "We'd been on holiday, but at some stage you feel the longing to get back on the pitch and kick the ball about." Marco Rose is "very open and very demanding," according to Brandt. "You can see how much enthusiasm he has for the club and the team."
Christina Reinke

BVB-TV by 1&1: Re-watch the first training session under Marco Rose