The Borussia U19s got into the mood for what head coach Mike Tullberg said would be the “toughest week of pre-season” by beating Nord-/Nordost-Bundesliga club VfL Wolfsburg 5-1, while the U17s ended their intensive training camp and narrowly missed out on the semi-finals at the “Bundesliga Cup” tournament in Heilbronn.

“I’m satisfied with the development,” said Tullberg of the good performance from the squad. He has observed progress in their play off the ball and their defence of opposition set-pieces, with the team now making highly promising inroads on a footballing level too. “The lads who are just joining from the U17s need to internalise that defending one’s own goal is one of the basics. That’s a question of attitude and desire,” he declared. A moment of carelessness in the 15th minute made it 1-0 to Wolfsburg, who are a strong side in footballing and physical terms, before Paris Brunner then levelled the scores at 1-1 in the 25th minute.

Tullberg selected players in the starting line-up “who I thought were the furthest along”. Hence why he was pleased with the reaction of the substitutes later on, “who decided the match”. After benefiting from an own goal to go 2-1 ahead, Rafael Lubach made it 3-1 before Vincenzo Onofrietti rounded off the scoring with a brace. The overall performance was even more remarkable given that the squad had trained intensively for two hours the day before.

But that was only a foretaste of the week to come, for which Tullberg has planned some challenging “double sessions”. We have a lot of work ahead of us; there are still several things to improve,” he explained. A friendly double-header is scheduled for Sunday. His team will take on FC Nordsjaelland (Denmark) at the Brackel youth performance centre in the morning (11:00 CET), before facing RW Essen in the afternoon (15:00 CET). The dress rehearsal for the opening Bundesliga match away to Bayer Leverkusen will take place against the first team of Oberliga club SG Finnentrop/Bamenohl on Sunday 30 July.

In the meantime, the first Bundesliga matches have been scheduled. The game in Leverkusen will take place at 13:00 CET on Sunday 13 August and will be followed by the first home game against Alemannia Aachen on Saturday 19 August, which will also kick off at 13:00 CET. The next fixtures are away to Wuppertaler SV on Wednesday 23 August (18:30 CET) and at home to Viktoria Köln on Sunday 27 August (11:00 CET).

U17s now at the fine-tuning stage

U17 coach Marco Lehmann gave a short and succinct summary of his impressions from the challenging training camp and the tournament in Heilbronn. “It was fun, all the lads completely pitched in.” He summoned them to the training pitch twice a day – “and on the second day of the tournament they were simply exhausted,” Lehmann explained. They played out a goalless draw against Eintracht Frankfurt in the opening group game despite their overwhelming superiority, then turned a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 win over Hamburg thanks to two Fritz Flick goals. They fell 1-0 behind early on in the final group game against FC Augsburg and – after failing to get back into the game – went 2-0 down in stoppage time. Their inferior goal difference vis-à-vis HSV saw them miss out on the semi-finals. They had nothing more to offer in the fifth-place play-off against Schalke and lost 1-0.

After two days off, they are now at the fine-tuning stage ahead of the opening Bundesliga game against Bayer Leverkusen on Saturday 5 August (11:00 CET). “We want to be top-fit for that,” Lehmann said. He will temporarily have to do without the injured Joshua Burstedde, who is struggling with a torn lateral ligament in his ankle. New signing Jan-Luca Riedl is still suffering from muscular problems, while Anas Mahjoubi has sustained a shoulder injury. The final friendly before the first competitive game will take place against FSV Mainz 05 in Dillenburg on Sunday (kick-off 13:00 CET). (wiwi)