Training camp time! For a football team, that means intensive preparations for upcoming tasks. The Germany U21s have been in the Austrian town of Leogang since 2nd June getting fit for the summer's EUROs in the Czech Republic (17th-30th June). U21 head coach Horst Hrubesch only has until 10th June to work on his side’s physical and mental side of the game.
But which aspects are the U21s actually focusing on? What things are they honing in on during training and how diverse is it all? And how does fitness play a role at the end of a long season? DFB.de asked the coaching team and players for the answers.
“The first one or two days here at the training camp were really tough. We’re slowly getting into the swing of things now,” said Christian Günter. The SC Freiburg defender, like almost all of his teammates, had ten free days following the final Bundesliga matchday, before travelling to the U21 training camp. The players can switch off somewhat after a long season, now they’re training twice a day again to get in the best condition for the European Championship in ten days’ time.
"Fine adjustments"
The eight days at the training camp are particularly important for the team. They have met four times before since September 2014. Then there were two qualifiers or friendly matches in the space of three of five days, and then back to their respective clubs. Therefore, there wasn’t much time for training. “Now, we’re together for longer, we can fine tune things,” Günter explained. “The procedures can be trained over a longer period and you can get to know one another better, both on and off the pitch.”
The team should even test themselves tactically in certain sessions. In various team meetings, the players think about different set-piece routines and game tactics before training and then try and put these into practice. It will be a welcome change for Borussia Mönchengladbach’s Julian Korb: “We hadn’t done it in this form before. The team can kind of think for themselves and then improve upon it. Normally the manager tells us what to do.”
And how important are strength and conditioning? In Horst Hrubesch’s training team, fitness coaches Axel Busenkell and Kruno Banovic are the experts here. They’re preparing the team physically for the European Championship. “Most players have a large burden behind them afte a long season,” Banovic said. “We have to look after that accordingly at the training camp that the lads stay fit but also fresh.” Conditional stimuli on one hand, physical freshness on the other too.
Engaging brains with 'Brain Activity'
The keyword is freshness. It’s here that the training team for the U21s have come up with something special, with a training session led by kinesiology expert Efthimios Kompodietas. His programme is called ‘Brain Activity’ – the players have to work their brains a lot, carry out different movement exercises and ply with various balls. For example, throwing two tennis balls into the air, crossing over hands, catching the balls again and passing the ball to your teammate with your feet at the same time. Not an easy task, but the DFB-Team youngsters got into the swing of things as time went on. Christian Günter revealed the simple trick to the exercise: “You have to be fully concentrated on the task in hand, then execute it too. Just like football, and then it’s fun too.”
The playing aspect, fitness, tactics and special training methods. There’s just one thing still missing from a good training camp, namely team spirit. That comes automatically for players though. “We already know one another well. You can exchange more at a training camp though and spend more time with each other,” said Julian Korb. “That’s there our team spirit comes from.” Everything seems to be coming together well at present with all these diverse preparations for the EUROs, which begin for the Germany U21 side in ten days’ time with their opening game against Serbia.
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Training camp time! For a football team, that means intensive preparations for upcoming tasks. The Germany U21s have been in the Austrian town of Leogang since 2nd June getting fit for the summer's EUROs in the Czech Republic (17th-30th June). U21 head coach Horst Hrubesch only has until 10th June to work on his side’s physical and mental side of the game.
But which aspects are the U21s actually focusing on? What things are they honing in on during training and how diverse is it all? And how does fitness play a role at the end of a long season? DFB.de asked the coaching team and players for the answers.
“The first one or two days here at the training camp were really tough. We’re slowly getting into the swing of things now,” said Christian Günter. The SC Freiburg defender, like almost all of his teammates, had ten free days following the final Bundesliga matchday, before travelling to the U21 training camp. The players can switch off somewhat after a long season, now they’re training twice a day again to get in the best condition for the European Championship in ten days’ time.
"Fine adjustments"
The eight days at the training camp are particularly important for the team. They have met four times before since September 2014. Then there were two qualifiers or friendly matches in the space of three of five days, and then back to their respective clubs. Therefore, there wasn’t much time for training. “Now, we’re together for longer, we can fine tune things,” Günter explained. “The procedures can be trained over a longer period and you can get to know one another better, both on and off the pitch.”
The team should even test themselves tactically in certain sessions. In various team meetings, the players think about different set-piece routines and game tactics before training and then try and put these into practice. It will be a welcome change for Borussia Mönchengladbach’s Julian Korb: “We hadn’t done it in this form before. The team can kind of think for themselves and then improve upon it. Normally the manager tells us what to do.”
And how important are strength and conditioning? In Horst Hrubesch’s training team, fitness coaches Axel Busenkell and Kruno Banovic are the experts here. They’re preparing the team physically for the European Championship. “Most players have a large burden behind them afte a long season,” Banovic said. “We have to look after that accordingly at the training camp that the lads stay fit but also fresh.” Conditional stimuli on one hand, physical freshness on the other too.
Engaging brains with 'Brain Activity'
The keyword is freshness. It’s here that the training team for the U21s have come up with something special, with a training session led by kinesiology expert Efthimios Kompodietas. His programme is called ‘Brain Activity’ – the players have to work their brains a lot, carry out different movement exercises and ply with various balls. For example, throwing two tennis balls into the air, crossing over hands, catching the balls again and passing the ball to your teammate with your feet at the same time. Not an easy task, but the DFB-Team youngsters got into the swing of things as time went on. Christian Günter revealed the simple trick to the exercise: “You have to be fully concentrated on the task in hand, then execute it too. Just like football, and then it’s fun too.”
The playing aspect, fitness, tactics and special training methods. There’s just one thing still missing from a good training camp, namely team spirit. That comes automatically for players though. “We already know one another well. You can exchange more at a training camp though and spend more time with each other,” said Julian Korb. “That’s there our team spirit comes from.” Everything seems to be coming together well at present with all these diverse preparations for the EUROs, which begin for the Germany U21 side in ten days’ time with their opening game against Serbia.
