With the Bundesliga powering down over the winter, Mainz 05 coach Martin Schmidt has gone to great lengths – or should that be great heights? – to keep his players fighting fit over the mid-season break.
Indeed, a matter of days before the entire squad flies out to Marbella for their warm-weather training camp, Schmidt decided to expose his team to the other end of the spectrum by treating them to a camping excursion in the mountainous canton of Valais in his native Switzerland.
As such, the players and staff engaged in a day full of team-building exercises before spending the night camped out on a bleak, snow-swept plateau some 2,700 metres above sea level.
Zeltlager auf 2700 Metern Höhe! Hier haben die Profis von #Mainz05 übernachtet! #Impulstage 🇨🇭 ⛺️ pic.twitter.com/yIZzoYhcW6
— 1. FSV Mainz 05 e.V. (@1FSVMainz05) January 5, 2016
As the old saying goes, there’s really nothing like freezing your chuff off in a zip-up nylon sack to really build team relations.