Nice hotel, good pitches, ideal weather: the Zerofivers have arrived in Brixental

Having left the Zerofivers training ground at 7:00 in the morning, the Mainz 05 first team squad arrived at their destination at 2:00 in the afternoon. The "Hohe Salve Sportresort", which belongs to the Tirol family-owned Pletzer group, will play host to the Zerofivers squad for a week in the Tirolean Brixental valley. Under the watchful eye of head coach Bo Henriksen, the 05ers will carry out a seven-day long intensive training camp ahead of the new season, which begins with the first round of the DFB Pokal away at SV Wehen Wiesbaden on Friday, 16th August.

After a short lunch, Henriksen and his squad, which included four U23 players in the shape of goalkeeper Max Kinzig, defender Philipp Schulz and midfielders Daniel Gleiber and Philipp Schulz, were ready for a first training session at the beautiful grounds of FC Bruckhäusl in nearby Kirchbichl.

Japanese new signing Kaishu Sano will arrive on Thursday, with the investigation into him discontinued. Alongside daily training sessions, one friendly is also currently planned. This Friday (15:00 CEST), the Zerofivers will take on newly-promoted Bundesliga side Holstein Kiel. The game will be over three 45 minutes ‘halves’ at the Silberstadt Arena in Schwaz im Inntal.

Full squad for daily training sessions

After the first short and snappy training session with a warm-up, work on the ball and a few small-sided games, the 05er’s head coach gave his positive first impressions to the travelling press: “The hotel is nice, the pitches are good and we had good weather today.” The conditions are also good. The Zerofivers will get out on the training pitch once a day in the coming days, apart from with the friendly on Friday. There will also be fitness sessions at the team hotel. “We will work on attacking patterns in training tomorrow. That will be important ahead of the game against Kiel where we have three ‘halves’ and all of the boys will play for 60 to 75 minutes. That is good for us. On Tuesday, we will play another internal friendly. it is important that everyone gets match practice and gains the necessary fitness,” stated the Dane, giving his plan for the week. “We don’t have any injuries, which is also really nice. Nadiem Amiri is back again and Kaishu Sano will join us tomorrow, so we have all players available.”

The 05ers will train tomorrow at 11:00 CEST, once again at FC Bruckhäusl’s ground in Kirchbichl.

First session with a mountain view