FIRST TEAM
01/07/2011

La Manga Day 5: Cooling down after an intense training session

A day to recover was obviously what the 1899 Hoffenheim team needed and it seemed to do them a world of good. On Friday, though, it was back to work as new manager Marco Pezzaiuoli put the players through their paces before a very welcome cooling down session after a hard days work.

Football is a competitive sport; all you need is two teams, two goals, and a ball and your good to go. The same applies on the training ground in La Manga where Marco Pezzaiuoli and assistant manager Marcel Lucassen had split his team into four teams of 5 for the exercise. It got the competitive juices flowing with tasty challenges and high tempo football, but one team emerged as the clear winner afterwards: Sebastian Rudy, Matthias Jaissle, Dominik Kaiser, Vedad Ibisevic and Ramazan Özcan enjoyed their successful morning exercise and the good feelings kept coming. Shooting practice gave all the players, goalkeepers and outfielders a like, a chance to have some fun and gain some confidence.

Lunch and a 2-hour recovery period, fitness coaches Christof Elser and Yannick Obenauer had set up several stations designed to work on the players' strength and balance. "Our aim is to prevent any injuries, whilst optimizing the players performance", explained Obenauer. After an intense session going round each of the individual stations the focus was back on the football again. Manager Marco Pezzaiuoli again went through his thoughts for the on pitch tactics before letting them play. He then stepped in every now and again to point out mistakes that were made and explain ways in which things could be done better.

The day wasn't over for Pezzaiuoli's men as they had one last "treat" to look forward to: a dunk in the ice baths. Three sessions of three minutes was what captain Beck and co. had to get through as they tried to speed up their recovery from what was a very hard, but successful, day at the office. "Our tactical work today was excellent and we've taken several steps forward to day", was Marvin Compper's assessment of the day's action.

 

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