The list of injured players is getting shorter and shorter! After Clemens Fritz returned to team training on Wednesday, the names of Aaron Hunt, Mehmet Ekici and Lukas Schmitz were taken off the list on Thursday.

"All three completed their first session today. We have to wait and see how they deal with the burden, but there were no problems yesterday after their individual training," said Werder head coach Thomas Schaaf. "Everything is okay with me. My stomach isn't giving me any problems anymore and I am happy to be able to be back at full training," said Schmitz. Ekici overcame his adductors problems and trained without pain: "I didn't have any problems. That is a good sign."

Schaaf, however, must continue to make do without Sokratis (adductors problems), Nils Petersen and Aleksandar Ignjovski, the latter two who were fighting a stomach flu. "Papas can maybe get back tomorrow but we don't want to risk it - the health of a player always comes first. And we can't say anything exact about Nils and Iggy," said the Bremen coach. Petersen himself hopes to return soon. "Overnight to Tuesday was pure horror. But now I have the worst behind me and I hope I can get back soon - maybe I can complete an easy running session tomorrow," said Werder's top scorer.