Four days ahead of the Hannover game, Peter Bosz and his fellow coaches planned a highly intense session to push the players to their absolute limit, including birthday boy Aleksandar Dragović. The boss also brought in the four U19 players Ayman Azhil, Jan Boller, Marc Lamti and Ömer Tokac. That ensured there was an energy-sapping 11-a-side game in the second part of the training session.
Lars Bender and Karim Bellarabi completed individual sessions on Wednesday as they recover from muscle injuries. And Panagiotis Retsos was able to complete a warm-up session with his team-mates before forming a separate training group on a neighbouring pitch with Bender and Bellarabi. The 20-year-old Greek returned to the training ground for the first time last week following a repeat muscle injury sustained at the end of November.
And there was also good news concerning Joel Pohjanpalo: Around 230 days after the 24-year-old Finland striker suffered a serious injury to his right ankle, the fans watching the Wednesday morning session were able see him in a red training kit and football boots once again. Pohjanpalo,, with a broad smile on his face, came onto the training ground some 30 minutes after the rest of the squad and he spent 45 minutes training with the ball on a neighbouring pitch under the guidance of Carsten Rademacher, head of the rehab therapy section.
