Fred Rutten on holidays in Spain

By: Porter | January 20th, 2009

If you can excuse me but as much as I appreciate the work at training camps, I know better then to say ones in resorts are “hard work” so when I read Schalke refer to the camp in Spain as “hard labour” I was trying not to laugh.

Camps in these types of resorts are a benefit for playing at a club with “deep pockets” and while you do train, it is in a very comfortable environment. For those who don’t play in a club that can afford this type of spending, you are using doing snow runs and developing your fitness through other winter sporting activities such as cross-country skiing and told by your manager that you have to play in it, so why wouldn’t you practice in the same weather. However, that rant aside Fred Rutten discussed the “hard labour” training camp on the club web-site:

Question:Fred, how would you sum up the training camp?

Fred Rutten: For me it’s always important to have the squad together for five or six days after a lengthy break. It was good to be in a different climate as well. It allowed us to work in a focused way and talk to the players individually. In training we deliberately placed the emphasis on developing the players’ physique. Plus we had two games against teams who are in the middle of their season and were really up for it. That pushed the players as well. I would have wished for a different scoreline both times, but the results of our games in Jena and Hannover are what’s really important. All in all the lads worked very hard, so for the first time in 13 days we’ll have a day off on Saturday. On Sunday we’re all off to the various New Year receptions.

Question:What’s the injury situation like?

Fred Rutten:Christian Pander, Levan Kobiashvili, who has a sore Achilles tendon, and Benedikt Höwedes, who took a blow to the knee in Spain, are carrying knocks. I don’t think they’ll be out for long, though. Kevin Kuranyi and Orlando Engelaar were able to do some work with the ball in full training on Friday, which was good. They’ll need a bit more time, however.

Question:In Marvin Pachan, Predrag Stevanovic and Andreas Wiegel three under-19 players accompanied the senior squad to Spain. What was your impression of them?

Fred Rutten:Don’t forget Danny Latza from the second team as well. It’s very important both for the club and the young players, who are sheltered a bit more in the youth team, after all, to get some experience at senior level. It’s a slightly different world and you have to get to know it. They’ve done that and they conducted themselves very well, which is what I would expect.