There are certainly not too many fans who are willing to brave the ice cold temperatures and attend Werder’s open training sessions. Those who did manage to see the session, however, would have noticed that some familiar faces were missing from Wednesday’s training session. Alongside the ten international players away with their respective nations, five other Werder players were missing from first team training following the Bundesliga game against Schalke.
Zlatko Junuzovic is currently not in training due to a painful achilles tendon problem. “He will miss the whole week of training because his bursa cannot take any extra load at the moment,” explained Alexander Nouri. The Werder head coach expects Junuzovic to return to team training next week. It’s a similar situation for Florian Grillitsch and Milos Veljkovic, who are both suffering with back problems. All three players were forced to withdraw from their international commitments because of their injuries. Grillitsch and Veljkovic are currently undergoing individual exercises and a therapy programme. “I’m very optimistic on Flo and Milos’ injuries. Hopefully they will both be back with us in training next week,” explained Nouri, who was also without Niklas Moisander for Wednesday’s training session.
Lamine Sané completes the injured quintet. The Senegalese has been nursing some minor tears to his lateral collateral ligament in his right knee. “We will have to monitor the situation at the beginning of next week as we look ahead to the Frankfurt game and then we will assess how things are going,” said Nouri. Sané will not take part in training this week.
U23s players Jesper Verlaat and Thore Jacobsen were however present. Having the two defenders available should be able to compensate in defence for the absent Sané, Moisander and Veljkovic. Also available for first team training is Jaroslav Drobny, who has been working with fellow goalkeepers Felix Wiedwald and Eric Oelschlägel.
