In wintery temperatures and steady snowfall on Thursday morning, the VfB players made their way to the Carl Benz Centre, where they went through some stabilisation and power increasing exercises at the Carl Benz Arena. Back amongst his team mates was left full-back Arthur Boka, who returned to Stuttgart yesterday following the Ivory Coast's exit from the ‘African Cup of Nations'. The drastic drop in temperature from 38°C to 0°C appeared to be no problem for the full-back though: "Of course I'm disappointed that we didn't progress to the semi-finals but I'm happy to be back here to focus on the tasks ahead and the games in the Bundesliga," said Boka.
Martin Lanig returns
At the end of the session, head coach Christian Gross gathered his men on the pitch, this time without Boka who went through some further power exercises and will not be involved in this Sunday's game. Both Matthieu Delpierre (broken toe) and Martin Lanig (cruciate ligament tear) were back in the fold once again but neither is expected to be fit enough to face BVB at the weekend. Striker Cacau (adductor problems), who is also doubtful for Sunday, did some laps of the training facility with physio Michael Eyreiner.
