Daniel Caligiuri: Everyone is ready for the second half of the season

“Mark Uth, Breel Embolo and Guido Burgstaller have all returned to first team training,” said the 30-year-old, who also said: “We have good players in every position.” Nevertheless, the Schalke 04 coaches want to improve their team by bringing in even better players. Head coach Domenico Tedesco had already announced that the club is looking for players – especially as Naldo recently moved to Monaco.

The first newcomer in the club however, is Seppo Eichkorn, who joined the coaching team a few days ago. “Seppo has made a super first impression,” praised Caligiuri. “You can see how much experience he has in football. With him, you can be open and talk about anything. He will continue to help us develop.”

Become more consistent upfront

When looking back at the first half of the season, Caligiuri criticizes most of all the lack of consistency upfront. “We played well in the Champions League and the DFB-Pokal, but we were not good enough in the Bundesliga,” recalled the right-wingback. “We also had games last season where we did not play well but we were able to win by one goal because we found solutions at the right times. This season however, we’ve made the chances but have not been able to finish them off.”

The first half of the season has been very stressful for the mind and so the break has been useful to unwind a bit and to approach the second half of the season with a fresher mind. Caligiuri is convinced that the team has the quality to venture away from the dreaded relegation zone. “We proved last season that we are effective and can dominate games,” he said.

The aim of this training camp and the coming weeks is to eradicate weaknesses and find strengths. “The standard in recent seasons has been good but not so good this season,” said Caligiuri. “We haven’t been finishing well and in some cases, we did not go the right way into the penalty area.” The team has improved though recently. “Bastian Oczipka, for example, has played well and brought the ball into the penalty box well,” said the German-Italian.

Having trained for a day in Benidorm, Caligiuri has noticed that: “the mentality in the team is great. Everyone wants the best for the team. What I have seen in training so far, has shown that everyone is ready to work hard for the start of the second half of the season.”