So far, FC Bayern’s preseason preparations have gone very well. The two friendly matches during the Asian tour, in particular, were very positive. Now the national team players, who were in action for a long time at the World Cup, are returning to training.
Today, Monday, marks the start of a new training week, and there’s a lot on the agenda for FC Bayern. This is partly because the players who only recently returned to training now need to get back into the swing of things.
And for these players, there are only two more regular training weeks left before their first competitive match: the Super Cup against BVB, which will be played on August 22 in Dortmund.
An Important Training Week for Bayern
Even before the start of preseason, FC Bayern knew that preparing for the new season wouldn’t be easy. Players like Lennart Karl and Serge Gnabry essentially started out in rehab; a few first-team players and many young prospects were there from the beginning, while others joined the ranks gradually.
According to BILD, Harry Kane, Michael Olise, and Dayot Upamecano are even being granted a few extra days of special leave and will likely not join regular training until after the Telekom Cup.
This also means that when the entire squad finally trains together for the first time soon, the players of the record-holding champions will be at completely different fitness levels. For Vincent Kompany and the coaching staff, this means they must, on the one hand, tighten the reins now, but at the same time proceed cautiously to distribute the workload wisely.
In addition, the priority now is to get back into a rhythm fairly quickly. After all, by the time they face Stuttgart—when FC Bayern kicks off the Bundesliga at the end of August—the starting lineup needs to be in the best possible shape. The training week leading up to the friendly against RB Leipzig this coming Saturday will therefore be a very important one for Kompany and his team.
That’s because another friendly against Heidenheim is already scheduled for the week leading up to the Super Cup match against Dortmund, meaning there won’t be a fully regular training week there either. The schedule is very tight.