Kovac: Schlotterbeck needs more time to assess; international schedule is overloaded

At 02:30 CET on October 10, Dortmund will host Werder Bremen in the fifth round of the Bundesliga. Ahead of the match, Dortmund head coach Niko Kovač held a press conference. Below is the first part of the press conference.

Niko, the most pressing and certainly most anticipated question is: How is Nico Schlotterbeck doing right now? Can he play on Friday? Or will it be next week? What are the details of his injury and his recovery progress?

Hello everyone. At the moment, Schlotti has started individual recovery training. Today we started team training, or more precisely from Tuesday, so he hasn't yet done full team training with us. The plan is for him to join full team training tomorrow. After that, based on his condition, we will assess for Friday's match and decide whether he has the fitness to play.

To follow up, that means it's entirely possible he could be in the squad or even play on Friday?

Yes, that's entirely possible. Everyone who knows Schlotti knows he always desperately wants to play; he has such strong ambition. However, we will discuss this tomorrow and of course we will consult closely with our medical staff for their expert advice.

Hello Niko, how is the fitness status of the other players? Particularly Julian Ryerson—I recall he had a minor knock—and have any other players returned with injuries or minor illnesses during the international break?

Yes, as Sven mentioned, this break has been relatively long. But in my opinion, it's certainly too long, because when you have to play four matches during this period, with a lot of travel, and the national team squads are actually relatively small—although the German national team took a different approach this time, all other national teams only call up a limited number of players, which means our players are constantly traveling long distances.

Currently, we have two players with slight colds and fevers, which of course need to be monitored to see how things develop over the weekend. Also, clearly Mathis (Albert) is only flying back from the US tomorrow. Ramy Bensebaini played 30 minutes in a friendly yesterday and is currently on his way back from Africa. Julian suffered a knock, but we're still not sure if he can play in the weekend match. In any case, we need to wait for tomorrow's assessment to see if playing at the weekend is feasible. Additionally, Emre Can has picked up a minor muscle issue from Austria.

So it's really fair to say that this break, or these four consecutive national team matches, is an excessive burden in my view, and this needs to be stated very clearly. Because I was also a national team coach, and I know very well that in that position you have responsibilities and the urgent need to compete for points and achieve success, but personally I prefer the old competition format. Yes, it's not that we club coaches are absent for two weeks, but because the players face a completely different match load and different match management requirements. However, I can also understand national team coaches; they basically want their key players to play the full 90 minutes because results are crucially important to them.

Hello everyone, thank you very much. I'd like to follow up: over the past two and a half weeks, how frequently and in-depth have you communicated and interacted with the various national team coaches?

At our club, our fitness department mainly establishes direct contact and communication with the medical and fitness staff of the national teams where our players are competing. Personally, I've been in direct contact and communication with Jürgen Klopp. All other coordination and communication work is handled and managed by our fitness department.

Niko, you just mentioned that as a former national team coach, you completely understand the situation. However, Greece's national team coach Jovanović publicly stated that he would make no concessions or special arrangements regarding Karetsas. In fact, in a few recent matches, he...

He really said that?

Yes, he said so in the press conference. However, I don't want to delve too deeply into his exact words. I want to ask: how do you navigate this difficult balance? For a young raw talent like him, who's just returned from injury, what measures are you taking to deal with this overloaded schedule? Also, I have a follow-up question: Maximilian Beier is one of the very few players who stayed at the club. How do you think he's made use of this break?

Yes, to the first question, as I said before, I can only say: I'm very aware of how high the expectations are for national team coaches. Wherever you coach, the expectations from society and the public are very high, so it's completely understandable that a coach naturally wants to field his best players.

With Konstantinos, his total playing time with the national team was actually somewhat more than we expected, and I think everyone could see that. He's also one of the players currently showing cold symptoms. The consistently high match load combined with the long-distance travel has really worn him out, and we'll monitor his condition over the weekend. However, there's always communication between us; there's no doubt about that.

As for Maxi, yes, Maxi has made very good use of this time. During the first week of the break, we gave him rest, just as we did with Sabitzer, along with a very systematic and structured individual running program. In the second week, since only two of them stayed with the first team, we arranged for them to participate in the second team's football technical training, so the boys could also get contact with the ball and train with it. Then on Tuesday, the whole team came back together for training, so he and Sabitzer are now very fit and in good condition, completely ready to compete for a spot in the squad for the weekend.

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