Mallorca Diary 21.05.08

The German national team arrived on the Spanish island of Mallorca on Monday, for their pre-Euro training camp and it’s time to do a quick scan of the German press, to collect the bits of news rippling out of Jogi’s hideout.

Miroslav Klose is officially out of form. Not that this comes as a big surprise for anyone, who has watched him play for Bayern lately. The DFB fitness coaches have now come to the conclusion, that Miro needs to work extra shifts in the gym to catch up with his team mates. Expect him to spend much more time lying on a giant gummy ball over the coming days.

Christoph Metzelder is the other player forced to play catch up, after he spent most of his first Real Madrid season with the Blancos’ team doctors. The fact that Jogi Löw has called him up to captain Germany’s defence alongside Mertesacker without batting an eyelid, goes to show that there are still few alternatives for Germany’s central defence.

Jogi Löw still has difficulties remembering Marko Marin’s first name and likes to refer to him as Markus. But he is nonetheless very impressed with Markus’ abilities on the ball. This could mean that either Trochowski or Odonkor will have to end their Euro campaign on May 28th, when Löw has to announce his final 23 man squad.

Timo Hildebrand is still in shock, being this tournament’s prominent last minute victim. The way he heard about his exclusion without any warning left him bitter as well. Now Jogi Löw tried some diplomacy and called Hildebrand and the two decided to meet after the Euros to discuss Germany’s roadmap for the World Cup in 2010, and whether Hildebrand can still play a role in future campaigns.

In order to improve Germany’s defence, Jogi Löw has invited Denis Wucherer, who played for Germany’s basketball national team, to teach the players a bit about how you defend in basketball. Löw isn’t a big friend of fouls and hopes that his players can probably learn a bit about how you block the ball with your body and about winning one-on-one situations. And at the end of the day it also serves as a little team building exercise. We will see how that all works out in due time…

If you are ready for a Google Translate tour de force you can read an interview with Denis Wucherer here. And you can check out DFB.TV’s coverage of the Mallorca training camp here.