Richter & Boëtius both training ahead of Frankfurt game!
A grinning Marco Richter walked out onto Schenckendorffplatz alongside Maximilian Mittelstädt as our number 23 made a full return to team training. A quick run followed by a shot on goal here, an intense challenge which required him to use his silky dribbling skills there – Richter truly was everywhere on the training pitch, and you could see his joy in that. This is because not even one month ago, it was unsure as to whether the 24-year-old would be capable of doing anything of the sort. Straight after our training camp in England, Richter was diagnosed with testicular cancer, which led to operations and further medical investigations.
The all-clear news came on 20th July: despite the tumour being malignant, due to the fact it had been discovered early enough, there was no need for our attacker to undergo any chemotherapy. Instead, Richter was able to able to focus on a gradual return to football. He began an individual recovery programme on the day of our anniversary celebration party. “I’m a footballer through and through and on a good path, however, I’m not putting any time pressure on making my return to the pitch. I’ve been given all the time I need, and I’ll just see how I get on day-by-day.”
Schwarz: “Boëtius is a sensible improvement to our squad”
Richter took the next step of his recovery in the form of a 90-minute session with the group during the first training session of the week. “We’re pleased to have Marco with us and we’ll see to it that we get him back to full fitness as soon as is possible,” commented Sandro Schwarz. After a warm-up, the Blue-Whites promptly began their drills and did so with real intensity. On the agenda today were one-on-one and two-on-two scenarios, and following this came a seven-a-side match on two pitches with two sets of goals. “The lads were very focused and showed a great willingness today,” our head coach explained the good start made by the squad, who had already completed a fitness session in the gym this morning.
New signing Jean-Paul Boëtius also took part in all of today’s training. “I was really excited to work together with the coach. To now be here at a team like Hertha and to be back in the Bundesliga is superb!”, our new number 10 had already revealed his excitement to us upon joining. “Djanga is a terrific player, he loves to run and is aggressive when defending. We had an opportunity to sign him, and for us, it’s a sensible improvement to our squad,” commented Schwarz, who has already coached Boëtius at Mainz 05. Whilst he can look forward to having two new options at his disposal, there were also some absentees from today’s training: Kélian Nsona, Dongjun Lee, Jessic Ngankam and Omar Alderete all continued their individual programmes.
The four aforementioned players will not be available for Saturday’s match against Eintracht Frankfurt (15:30 CEST). Despite that, anticipation levels for this game are certainly high. “It’s a special game because it’s our first home match of the season. Although they’ve got the Super Cup against Real Madrid in the week, they’ll want to play their best-possible team and put in their best-possible performance against us,” our head coach was assured. Our lads are aware that hard work needs putting in in training to fully prepare for this game.