First session under Christian Ilzer

Seven degrees celsius, rain and light gusts of wind. The conditions could certainly have been better for the start of training under Christian Ilzer. But the new head coach and the TSG Hoffenheim players were not affected by the weather and trained together for the first time on the pitch in Zuzenhausen on Monday afternoon. After warming up in the gym, the Austrian welcomed 28 players onto the pitch for his first session in the Kraichgau.

TSG trained for around an hour and a half before the first joint session came to an end. The team, which was still without the internationals and had been bolstered by a number of players from the U23s, began with passing drills before moving on to various game formats.

"We don't have much time and want to get to work straight away. We want to link up with the existing team quickly in order to have success with the very good players we have. To do this, we need to see and analyse the state of play very quickly," said Ilzer on his first day.

TSG will complete another public training session on Tuesday morning before continuing their preparations for the Bundesliga match against RB Leipzig (Saturday, 15:30 CET/liveticker at tsg-hoffenheim.de) with non-public sessions. Christian Ilzer will be making his debut in the technical area for TSG.