The Sunday morning sun beat down mercilessly on the pitch. In hot and humid conditions, the Black n Yellows were once again put through a hard training regime. The session involved ball work again, but it was so tough and intense, there was little time for a breather.

In spite of the preseason friendly at Swiss third-division side FC Rapperswil later in the day (1800 CET), the coaches didn’t tone down training. After going “easy” on Saturday” with a (relaxed) session, training was stepped up a notch again on Sunday.

Marco Reus, Jakub Blaszczykowski and Ilkay Gündogan were also training hard, but still on an individual basis, while Henrikh Mkhitaryan had to cut training short because of a muscle problem. Due to his World Cup break, Matthias Ginter is also following an individual programme before joining in full training.

This Sunday, Alexander Frei paid a visit to his former club. A year ago, Switzerland’s record scorer took over the position of sporting director at FC Luzern, but he still looks as fit as ever. He was given an extremely warm welcome by Hans-Joachim Watzke and Jürgen Klopp. Jorge Luis Pinto, who successfully coached Costa Rica at the World Cup, has also been a frequent guest at BVB’s training camp in Switzerland.