“Crucial that we’re mentally ready”

The clash at FC Bayern Munich at 18:30 CEST on Saturday presents Sebastian Hoeneß’s side with a tough test against the Bundesliga leaders. “It’s crucial that we focus fully on the tasks in front of us and are mentally ready,” explained the VfB boss in Thursday’s press conference. VfB have seven matches in the next 23 days – starting with the trip to the German record champions.

“The biggest challenge”

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Jamie Leweling emulates Deniz Undav

A VfB crest to symbolise a unique partnership

Return in sight

“It’s the biggest challenge you can have in Germany at the moment,” said Hoeneß, praising FCB who lead the Bundesliga table with 14 points from six games: “They’re back to their old strength, playing with high intensity and running a lot, even though they have the most possession in the league. Bayern have an outstanding squad but we want to try to take our chances and make it a more open game than last year there.”

And Hoeneß added: “Even in Munich, we want to stick to our game and realise that we need to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves.” His team can count on great support once again, with the away allocation sold out and at least 7,500 VfB fans set to travel to Bavaria.

Al-Dakhil making good progress

The personnel situation has changed slightly over the international break. Ameen Al-Dakhil, who played his first minutes for VfB in the 1-1 friendly draw against SSV Ulm, has trained fully with the team during the international window.

There’s positive news on Leonidas Stergiou too, who’s making progress and being reintegrated into parts of team training. Nick Woltemade has also been back training with the group after his recent cold. Dan-Axel Zagadou, Chris Führich, Justin Diehl and Luca Raimund are ruled out.