Ngankam and Kristensen back | OneFootball

The Eagles’ 17-man training group on Tuesday morning included two players returning from injury.

“I’ll give it everything to come back as quickly and strongly as possible,” Jessic Ngankam had said in an interview for the Eintracht website just a few weeks after his serious tibia and fibula injury in the spring.

Almost six months to the day since the striker sustained the fracture in his lower leg in a Bundesliga 2 match for Hannover 96 – where he was on loan last season – against Elversberg, he was back in training with the team. Partly integrated to begin with, Ngankam was welcomed with a quick hug from head coach Dino Toppmöller and a guard of honour from his team-mates, before feeling the grass underneath and the ball at his feet again.

The guard of honour included a second returnee, with Rasmus Kristensen reporting for training on Tuesday after suffering a muscle injury in the Bundesliga match at Bayer 04 Leverkusen. In the absence of the 16 internationals, who have been

with their national teams since the beginning of the week, Toppmöller assembled 17 players, including the four goalkeepers Kaua Santos, Michael Zetterer, Jens Grahl and Amil Siljevic, on pitch 4 at Deutsche Bank Park. Youngsters Fousseny Doumbia, Daniel Starodid, Jeremiaha Maluze and Kaan Inanoglu were also part of the group.

Following the workout on the pitch, the players headed straight to the gym at the ProfiCamp. Further sessions are planned up to and including Friday, before the team take a few days off. Eintracht’s next competitive fixture is away to Freiburg on Sunday 19 October on Bundesliga Matchday 7 (kick-off 15:30 CEST).