The boys are back in Leipzig!
RB Leipzig held their first training session back on home soil following the winter training camp in La Manga on Tuesday morning. RBL fans watched on as the boys geared up for their first Bundesliga match of 2024 – a home clash against Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday (15:30 CET).
Despite the freezing temperatures (-8 degrees Celsius), the players had an intense training session which was led by RBL head coach Marco Rose. After the training session, Lois Openda spoke to the media. We’ve gathered our number 17’s most important quotes below.
The public training session in photos
Lois Openda on…
…the training camp
- “We had a good few days in La Manga. We worked on a lot of the smaller details. For example, we tweaked our attacking patterns and did a lot of shooting practice. It was really good.”
…the changes to the squad
- “In Emil Forsberg and Fabio Carvalho, we’ve lost two attackers that brought a lot of quality to the table. Now, our squad may be a bit smaller, but we’ve still got a lot of good players.
Dani Olmo will come back from injury and we’ve added a technically proficient player to our ranks in Eljif Elmas. Eljif has already shown that he’s a really good player in his first few days here. He’s got good awareness of the players around him, looks to take shots and is very versatile. It’s good that he’s with us now – he’ll help the team to improve.”
…his ambitions for this year
- “Our aims are still to win as many games as possible, score goals and finish as high up the table as we possibly can. We’re in the top four at the moment, and we want to make sure we finish there at the very least in the next five or six months.”
Lois Openda on…
…the upcoming clashes
- “Frankfurt, Leverkusen and Stuttgart are all good teams who have a lot of quality players. That being said, we’re still heading into these games with confidence and want to win. We were in form before the winter break. We want to build on that and solidify our place in the top four by winning more games.
We’ll play our next couple of games in front of our own fans at the Red Bull Arena. It always gives us a boost. We’re looking forward to kicking off 2024 in front of a home crowd – it’ll be cool.”
…the winter in Leipzig
- “It’s really cold. That’s why it isn’t my favourite time of year (laughs). But, all joking aside, we’re professional footballers and playing when it’s ice-cold outside is part of the job. Warming-up properly is even more important when it’s this temperature. The weather isn’t a problem for me.”