“I want to be out on the pitch and be an example to the team,” said Werder’s new interim coach at his official presentation on Monday afternoon. Shortly after, he put his words into practice. Before the team arrived to the training, Alexander Nouri was on the training pitch, carrying the goals onto the field with assistant Florian Bruns and preparing his first session.
One man who wasn’t there was Serge Gnabry. The weekend’s goal scorer had to sit out of training as “he has a thigh wound which is sensitive to pressure. It’s possible he’ll also miss tomorrow’s session too, we’ll have to take a decision shortly,” said Nouri. Furthermore, Lamine Sané (personal reasons) and Fin Bartels were also absent - the midfielder is still working towards his comeback.
Niklas Schmidt and Ousman Manneh joined training from the U23 squad in order to make up for the shortage of players. “It’s basically so that we can play a game of ten versus 10, for example,” explained Nouri, who took players to one side during the training session for individual discussions. In what is a three-game week for Werder, the final training session will place on Tuesday, ahead of Wednesday’s home game against Mainz 05. Fritz, Junuzovic and co. will begin their final preparations for the floodlit game against Mainz behind closed doors.
