Easter is right around the corner but there was an early surprise on Wednesday for Werder's players. When they arrived for training shortly after 9 a.m. at Weser Stadium, they did not head to the training grounds as usual but instead travelled to the casern in Delmenhorst. "There is a ‘funny' boot camp awaiting us there," said Mikael Silvestre. There was a series of obstacle courses on the schedule for Wiese, Mertesacker & Co. who were separated in three teams. "There was quite a bit there to go through. We squeezed through lorry tyres, crawled through sand, and went over pits," said Silvestre, who like his teammates welcomed the change of pace. "Now we have taken two bike tours and today something different. It's just important to get away from the football pitch every once and a while."
The main reason for the activity was building the team spirit with no television cameras or photographers present. "We have gone through such team spirit building measures a few times. Today we went to the casern to Delmenhorst. Not everybody was expecting this," said manager Klaus Allofs about the action.