National player Florian Wirtz has completed part of the team training at Bayer Leverkusen for the first time since he suffered a cruciate ligament rupture in March.
The club announced this on Monday and posted a photo showing the 19-year-old in an exercise with the ball. Wirtz suffered the injury almost seven and a half months ago in the derby against 1. FC Köln (0-1).
Also in training were winger Karim Bellarabi, who suffered a torn meniscus in the middle, and Exequiel Palacios, who has been out for six weeks with a muscle injury. It is unclear when Wirtz will be able to play again. The attacking player is missing a lot from Leverkusen. Until his serious injury, he was a formative figure in the Werkself game and also a beacon of hope and a safe candidate for the World Cup in Qatar (20 November to 18 December).
Most recently, Oliver Bierhoff, managing director of national teams and academies at the German Football Association (DFB), had given Wirtz slight hopes of participating in the World Cup. “In the end it depends on the coaches what they trust him to do,” he said at an appointment last week: “With 26 players there are a lot of thoughts. Maybe it also makes sense to take a player with us who doesn’t have the match practice, but then would see such a tournament.”
