Borussia Dortmund have started preparations for the second half of the season on Tuesday with new signing Kevin Kampl. BVB’s Bundesliga campaign will resume with a visit to Bayer Leverkusen on 31 January.

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“For a long time a number of my players weren’t able to train as much as we would have liked,” said BVB coach Jürgen Klopp, referring to the many injuries in the squad in the first half of the season. Jakub Blaszczykowski, Ilkay Gündogan, Nuri Sahin or Oliver Kirch are among this set of players who will benefit from the pre-season, while Marco Reus, Henrikh Mkhitaryan or Sokratis are expected to return to training soon.

The Dortmund coach will also have to do without Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Africa Cup of Nations from 17 January to 8 February) as well as Shinji Kagawa and Mitchell Langerak (AFC Asian Cup from 9 to 31 January) who will be away on international duty.

The team will be training in Dortmund until Friday before – as in previous years - leaving for a one-week training camp in La Manga, Spain, on Saturday.