Running and sprinting the priority on day two

On the second day of the Trentino training camp, Xherdan Shaqiri passed on his early impressions to reporters. “Here in Trentino we're mainly discussing tactical aspects," the Swiss midfielder said. That was at midday, but not three hours later, tactics were no longer on the Bayern agenda, because athletics took centre stage in the afternoon session. The ball as such was hardly to be seen.

After a warm-up and exercises with elastic ropes, designed to improve the players’ quality of movement, the squad was split into a number of groups. Supervised by fitness coaches Thomas Wilhelmi, Andreas Kornmayer and Marcelo Martins, the stars soon began pouring sweat. The most punishing work was put in by stamina-building trio Daniel van Buyten, Rafinha and Shaqiri, who performed increasingly fast interval sprints, and were soon pushing at their early-season limits.