On Thursday evening, the injured Torsten Frings had to sit helplessly and watch on with his team mates on the bench as Germany took on Portugal in the European Championship quarter finals.
On Thursday evening, the injured Torsten Frings had to sit helplessly and watch on with his team mates on the bench as Germany took on Portugal in the European Championship quarter finals.
On Thursday evening, the injured Torsten Frings had to sit helplessly and watch on with his team mates on the bench as Germany took on Portugal in the European Championship quarter finals. With the side having stunningly booked their EURO 2008 semi-final place, Frings was back in full team training again on Friday.
The Werder Bremen midfielder trained with the aid of some special bandaging to protect and support his broken rib. German national team coach Joachim Löw did pull slightly on the 31 year olds reins and urged caution: “We’ll have to wait and see what happens,” but “It’s definitely not sensible to be getting stuck into challenges today because every day can be vital with an injury such as his.” Torsten Frings himself commented: “I have no breathing problems and need now just three to five more days.”
With that in mind, Löw and his training staff made their selection for the game against Portugal very deliberately, not taking any risks: “It was too big a risk yesterday, in my opinion and the doctors discouraged using him,” admitted Löw. The decision was a tough, but a correct one: “If he had received a body check and had to be replaced after 15 minutes, that wouldn’t have been good for our game,” explained the 48 year old. Now Frings has set his sights on a place in the starting eleven for next Wednesday’s semi-final clash with Turkey.
