RB Leipzig have won their first pre-season friendly. The Bundesliga club won 1:0 (1:0) against north-east regional league side SV Babelsberg in a friendly match at the Saxons' training academy on Friday. The goal was scored by Eljif Elmas in stoppage time of the first half.
"I'm very pleased with what I saw today. The last 14 days have been very energetic overall, the young guys are pulling their weight. The old hands are leading the way. That was also reflected in the game today. It was men's soccer, even for the young U19s," said head coach Marco Rose.
With only half a dozen professionals, but with the talented new signings Assan Quedraogo (FC Schalke) and Maarten Vandevoordt (KRC Genk) in goal, RB put in a solid performance with the experienced Kevin Kampl, Lukas Klostermann and Mohamed Simakan. However, the fourth-division side were also in impressive form and played at a very good level. The next test match opponent in the training camp on July 31 is Premier League fourth-placed Aston Villa, before facing Wolverhampton Wanderers on August 4.
EM players expected
Hungarian internationals Gulacsi and captain Willi Orban are expected to train this Monday. They will be followed shortly before their departure to the US training camp (July 28 to August 4) by Lois Openda, who was already an onlooker at the test match, as well as Benjamin Sesko, Yussuf Poulsen, Christoph Baumgartner and Nicolas Seiwald. "We're all going through it now, we've accepted that from the start. We're not going to start using that as an excuse," said Rose. German internationals Benjamin Henrichs and David Raum will begin their preparations in Leipzig on August 1 - both will be missing for the start of the training camp in New York.
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