The She-Wolves, who are chasing glory on three fronts in what promises to be a thrilling second half of the campaign, took to the Elsterweg pitch at 15:00 CET on Thursday afternoon for their first training session of 2020.
Having dealt with numerous absentees through injury and illness during the first half of the season, head coach Stephan Lerch will have been delighted to have a full squad of players at his disposal. Much of the focus was on 24-year-old Madelen Janogy, who was training with her new team-mates for the first time since joining the five-time German champions from Swedish club Pitea IF.
“The fire was back”
The light rain and soggy surface did little to dampen the She-Wolves’ enthusiasm, as Lerch and his assistants Ariane Hingst and Theresa Merk ran their players through the warm-up before moving on to various tactical exercises with the ball. Meanwhile, VfL’s four goalkeepers were put through their paces under the watchful eye of coaches Eike Herding and Alisa Vetterlein.
“I’m pleased to get going again,” said Lech. “We laid a solid foundation during the first half of the season and we now need to build on that. Despite yesterday’s lactate tests, the fire was back again today. Considering that the players haven’t touched a ball in three weeks, it went really well.”
VfL will step up their preparations for the second half of the campaign during a 12-day training camp in the Algarve, Portugal, from 22 January until 2 February.
