The restart of the Bundesliga will be frosty – many teams such as Bayern Munich and Borussia Mönchengladbach prepared in icy temperatures. Borussia Dortmund preferred the sun in Marbella – which is better?
It is very rare that Gerardo Seoane hides his hair, which is always quite strictly gelled, under a cap during training. This week, however, it was down to minus seven degrees in the mornings on the Lower Rhine at times, and the grass heating on the training ground couldn’t melt away the lightning ice that quickly – that’s why the Gladbach coach preferred a warming headgear.
In Munich, Thomas Tuchel did the same thing. When he gathered his protégés again on Säbener Straße on January 2nd after a twelve-day Christmas break, he also had a hat on and was also wearing a thick winter jacket.
Up to minus ten degrees at Bayern’s start
Tuchel’s outfit fits the start of the season on Friday evening (8.30 p.m., live ticker and radio report at sportschau.de) against TSG Hoffenheim. According to “wetter.de” the minus ten degree mark will be broken during the game around 10 p.m. On Sunday afternoon, when Gladbach welcomes VfB Stuttgart, the temperatures are expected to be a little above freezing. The results at the weekend will show which is the better option for blitz preparation, staying at home or, for example, Borussia Dortmund’s six-day Marbella training camp on the Costa del Sol.
Many factors play a role in this, including the rapid integration of the winter newcomers: On January 11th, Jadon Sancho returned to Dortmund on loan after tough negotiations with Manchester United, and Bayern also released Eric Dier from Tottenham shortly before the restart.
difficulties at the winter arrivals
Last year, Munich residents were pretty wrong overall with their winter shopping. Goalkeeper Yann Sommer was brought from Gladbach for eight million euros as a replacement for Manuel Neuer, full-back João Cancelo came on loan from Manchester City, as did the defense veteran Daley Blind, who was without a club. All three are long gone.
Seoane would also like to have reinforcements in Mönchengladbach, especially since defense chief Ko Itakura was assigned to the Asian Cup despite an injury. But first of all, the Foals’ squad is being thinned out a bit: the Luxembourg talent Yvandro Borges Sanches is being loaned out to NEC Nijmegen, and bad purchase Hannes Wolf is also about to leave. At least one new player should come, but he certainly won’t be able to help at the start against Stuttgart (Sunday, 5.30 p.m., live ticker and radio report at sportschau.de).
Parallel problems in Dortmund and Gladbach
Seoane had written two main problems, which exactly correspond to those of her namesake cousin from Dortmund, at the top of her to-do list for the short training period in January: “We need more penetration up front, I also expect points from the wingers. And of course we conceded far too many goals.” It has already hit 35 times, only Darmstadt is worse. BVB is also struggling with 25 goals conceded and is by far the most vulnerable team in the top six of the league.
The test match against the traditional club Standard Liège, which has slipped into mediocrity in Belgium, showed that there was no miracle cure in Marbella either: the game ended 3-3. Coach Edin Terzic then struggled with exploiting opportunities, but defensive stability was also missing again, despite the two new assistant coaches Nuri Sahin and Sven Bender, who are supposed to focus their work on the two problem areas: Sahin on the offensive, Bender on the defensive. Whether they can fix anything so quickly will be seen on Saturday evening (6.30 p.m., live ticker and radio report at sportschau.de) at bottom team Darmstadt 98.
Two days to focus on the opponent
In Gladbach the coaching team has remained the same, Seoane explains how he sees the division up to the start of the season: “From the start on January 2nd until this Wednesday it was about general content, the lessons learned from the first half of the season so far, the opponents’ attacks, defending crosses and much more. After the free Thursday we have two days in which the Opponent Stuttgart comes to the fore.”
That’s not a lot of time, but with minor differences in the squads for the Asian and African Cups, it affects all teams similarly: Given the short preparation, it will literally be a cold start. However, for Bayern as Leverkusen’s pursuers, for Dortmund as currently in fifth place and for Gladbach in disappointing twelfth place, they all have to be up to operating temperature particularly quickly.