Then Schultz expects his offensive stars back

1. FC Cologne started the training week without any new failures. However, Timo Schultz will have to do without a trio for a while longer.

The celebrations at 1. FC Köln are over for now. Participation in the Rose Monday procession was the last act of the cautiously celebrated carnival days for the “billy goats”. While coach Timo Schultz and the professionals Linton Maina, Eric Martel, Davie Selke and Jeff Chabot supplied the carnivalists with camels on the float, the majority of the team watched the procession from the stands at Heumarkt.

“It was as if we had become German champions,” enthused Martel a day later about the experience, which was like a triumphal procession through the city. “Incredible,” said Schultz, describing his debut on the approximately 8.5 kilometer long train after the first training session of the week.

However, the team didn’t celebrate too much. Schultz was able to welcome all players to the training pitch on Tuesday, apart from the long-term injured Mark Uth, Davie Selke and Luca Waldschmidt. Accordingly, Timo Hübers, who was missing from Hoffenheim due to illness, also returned and will be available for FC against Werder Bremen on Friday evening.

This is all the more important because Jeff Chabot, another regular central defender, can only watch against Bremen while he is suspended. Hübers “is doing well,” Schultz reported after the session. The same applies to Justin Diehl, who had already returned at the end of last week, but was missing for a total of more than ten days.

Meanwhile, the injured trio has to continue to be patient. Although Schultz doesn’t want to make precise predictions for Waldschmidt, Uth and Selke, the coach doesn’t expect his three offensive players to return until the international break. The break takes place in mid-March. Before that, the games against Bremen, Stuttgart, Leverkusen, Gladbach and Leipzig are on the program.

All three were injured within a few days of each other at the beginning of January. None of the players are so far along in the rehab process that training on the pitch would be possible. That means: It will probably be a few weeks before the trio is able to play again.

Uth’s further long absence is particularly bitter. The ten team had missed practically the entire previous season and now wanted to attack again. But at the start of the season, Uth had to take another long break, and now a sprained ligament in his knee is forcing him to sit out. Shortly after the injury, around five weeks ago, Schultz had hoped that Uth would be able to be back on the pitch “in two to three weeks”.

However, as was so often the case last season, this forecast turned out to be wrong. Those responsible now hope that Uth, like Waldschmidt (fractured fibula) and Selke (metatarsal injury), can prepare with their teammates for the final spurt in the relegation battle in the short training camp in Algorfa, Spain (March 18th to 23rd).