On Saturday, the Gym of 2017/18 headed to Divonne-les-Bains, as they stepped up their preparations for the new season. The logical continuation of a solid programme, in which everything should accelerate now, just as Lucien Favre explained in his press conference. Verbatim.

The first weeks of preparation

"We have now been back for 10 days, almost two weeks, and things have gone very well. There has been a lot of work, 2 sessions a day on most days, with two rest days at the end of a busy first week. There has been a lot of conditioning, but in terms of match play, we began on Friday: it was the first time that we had an 11v11. This week, we have already had longer sessions, between the pitch, the gym and the runs... The players have prepared themselves for this trip."

Divonne-les-Bains

"It is good to have spent 10 days in Nice preparing well before traveling.

To go on tour straight away, is pointless, because there are too many things to put in place. This way, it is very good, we have travelled at the right time. We wanted to have two weeks of solid work before playing: now that we have worked really well, we can play. I think that the players are ready for a half today and they will be ready for 60 minutes next week, and so on and so forth."

The first 2 friendlies 

"We are going to play our first game against  Nyon. We will have two different teams which is good, because there are some players who aren't 100% ready, so we have to be careful with injuries. At the end of the trip, we have another friendly against Servette Genève. We can always see things, the players need to make the most of these matches to show themselves. The fixtures that come after these, will be something else. La Gantoise (13 July) were in the Champions League two years ago, Slavia Prague (16 July) are the champions in the Czech Republic, that all happens in the space of 3-4 days. We need to travel on both occasions and we will need to put in strong performances, because after that the teams we could face (in Q3), if they are Russian or Ukrainian, they will already be mid-season." 

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