Foals gear up for their first and only friendly of the winter break

Borussia face Dutch top-tier side Go Ahead Eagles on the FohlenPlatz at BORUSSIA-PARK tomorrow (Saturday) at 13:00 CET. It will be the Foals’ first and only friendly match ahead of the second half of the season.

In nine days time, the ball gets rolling again in the Bundesliga for the Foals. Gladbach will welcome VfB Stuttgart to BORUSSIA-PARK on Sunday, 14th January (17:30 CET). Borussia therefore do not have a lot of time to prepare for the second half of the 2023/24 season. “We of course had one or two more training sessions this week, because it’s not long until the first competitive game and we’ll have to be on top of our game physically again,” says head coach Gerardo Seoane.

As well as this, the Foals will play a friendly against Dutch top-tier side Go Ahead Eagles tomorrow (Saturday). The match on the FohlenPlatz at BORUSSIA-PARK will kick off at 13:00 CET. The two clubs have agreed to play the game in four 30-minute periods. “At our current stage of preparation, it’s too early for the players to complete 90 minutes. A normal half of 45 minutes would though be a bit too short for most of them. Therefore, the majority will play two lots of 30 minutes,” explains Seoane. “One or two who are coming back from injury will maybe play just 30 or 45 minutes and do an extra running session. We’ll decide on that individually.”

That applies for example to Ko Itakura and Stefan Lainer. “The game will be a test of workload for Ko. We’re all feeling good after the injury. He was with his national team and did good sessions with a high intensity here. If everything’s okay after the game on Saturday, he’ll travel to the Asian Cup with his national team and play there. The most important thing is that Ko’s fit and healthy,” emphasises Seoane. “Stevie Lainer will also appear at some point, as long as he copes well with the final training session.”

The game though will come too early for Jonas Omlin (recovering from a shoulder operation), Lukas Ullrich (recovering from a shoulder operation), Franck Honorat (back in training after a gastrointestinal virus) and Tomáš Čvančara (rolled ankle).

Seoane expects the remaining players “to immediately return to our playing principles.” “It’s not like the first two or three friendlies of pre-season, when you’re still finding your feet as a team. We’re taking this friendly very seriously, the result less so. We want to bring what we’ve worked on it training onto the pitch – things that we think have maybe been missing a bit from our game so far.”