Preparation for the Bundesliga: Kleeblatt writes first chapter – SpVgg Greuther Fürth

– In five weeks the cloverleaf will start the Bundesliga season. There is still a lot of time that Stefan Leitl wants to use to work primarily on the defensive. He recently received support for this – and is hoping for more. The trainer outlined what it should look like at the start of the training session.

History comes to life in the stairwell. Anyone who wants to go to the top of the main grandstand of the Fürth Ronhof can delve a little deeper with every step into the almost 118-year history of the Spielvereinigung. Huge newspaper articles adorn the walls, the texts are about the big moments when the club shone “in the brightest shine”, about the three championship titles and the first promotion to the Bundesliga in 2012.

But it is also about the sad times, about “the shamrock financial crisis” or the impending crash into the third division. On the last few meters, before a door points the way towards the playing field, it says in large letters: “And now it’s time to write new stories!”

“Rest, collect, reflect”

SpVgg Greuther Fürth wrote the first chapter of the new season on Saturday with the start of training. Six weeks after the acclaimed promotion to the Bundesliga, the men in white and green returned to the place of success, where they had fulfilled their dream of returning to the top division on May 23 with a 3-2 win against Düsseldorf .

After 34 exhausting match days, after a nerve-wracking end of the season, the players and those responsible first had to and wanted to process everything they had experienced in the past few months. “Relax, collect, reflect, analyze”, is how coach Stefan Leitl summed up the first days off this summer, “and then you take care of the family.”

“Physically on a very good level”

For a few weeks now, Leitl has again spent many hours preparing himself and his team as well as possible for the new season. Despite the days off, the players were hardworking, after all they had a longer break than usual – because the first Bundesliga starts three weeks later than the second. “From a physical point of view, we are at a very good level and also significantly further than at the beginning of the season last year,” said Leitl, “in the basic area we have dealt with almost all topics.”

That gives them time to take care of other things. The defense, for example, which will be in the foreground in the coming weeks. In each of the last five second division games last season, the clover had conceded two goals, which a league higher up cannot afford. “We have to defend even better than in the second division because the individual quality in the Bundesliga is significantly higher,” said the coach. Only later, as the first game at VfB Stuttgart gets closer, the offensive should be fine-tuned. “We want to stay true to our principles and our style of play”, Leitl looks ahead. Brave, offensive.

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New video analyst

In order to better prevent unnecessary goals and to detect gaps in the opposing offensive, the clover recently hired a new video analyst in Alexander Hahn from Hamburger SV. It shouldn’t be the last transfer this summer. The game association needs more players, especially for central defense, but for Leitl they do not necessarily have to be older and experienced in order to survive in the Bundesliga.

It’s not about age, but about quality. “We want to get players who are young, who are hungry and want to take the next step,” said the coach. “In the last three years we have built something that we won’t throw overboard just because we’re heading towards the Bundesliga.” Starting with goalkeeper Sascha Burchert, he sees an experienced axis in the team that should keep the talent, “the rest should fit into our profile”.

Test match on Friday

How well the interaction works will be shown for the first time on Friday. Then at 4 p.m. the second team from FC Bayern drops by at the Ronhof. In addition, it will soon be against Würzburg and Ingolstadt, further test games in the training camp are to be announced soon. At the end of the preparation, the cloverleaf competes on July 31st with the Spanish first division relegated SD Eibar.

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