Davide Ancelotti gets involved

Manuel Neuer and Rafinha were working alone in the performance centre, whilst Philipp Lahm took part in running exercises and Sven Ulreich worked hard with goalkeeping coach Toni Tapalovic. Ten further FC Bayern first team players are away with their national teams. The German record champions’ training group was therefore small on Thursday.

To be more precise, only Jerome Boateng, Xabi Alonso, Franck Ribery, Tom Starke, Juan Bernat and Kingsley Coman were present out on the pitch for Carlo Ancelotti and his team – six men in total. No problem then for assistant coach Davide Ancelotti to get involved too. The Italian gave his all in a game of 5 vs 2, and seemed to enjoy himself like the players.

Calm before the storm

The weather also played its part as the Bayern players took part in their final session before a few days off under sunshine and blue skies. Those still at home will be allowed to have a lie in before the busy April period gets going. FCB have nine games scheduled for the month, including the Champions League quarter-finals against Real Madrid (12 and 18 April) and two Klassikers in the Bundesliga and DFB Cup semi-final against Borussia Dortmund (8 and 26 April).

The preparations for this decisive stage of the season begin on Monday with a public training session (15:00CET). Players are set to return from their national teams around the middle of next week. That should see the training ground a bit fuller and mean Davide Ancelotti can concentrate again on managing and observing the sessions, even if his performance today was of sufficient quality.