And it is not an easy task or process at all. One could probably call it laborious, even. If you ask any player, they will confirm this for you. Especially after the fitness, ball-circulation, and tactics program they had in the morning, the build-up play drills, the finishing practice, and the three-team tournament they had in the afternoon.

The good thing is that the work continues with minimal micro-problems that always seem to exist in the basic stage of pre-season preparation. Lefteris Lyratzis, who suffered a pulled muscle in the match against Go Ahead Eagles, is now back to full training, as is Andre Vieirinha, who was struggling to get back to full fitness after getting injured in last season’s Greek Cup final.

Jasmin Kurtic is now also in Lucescu’s plans, so the only name on the medical report – apart from long-term injury victim Giannis Michailidis – is Andre Ricardo, who has some stomach muscle problems to overcome and he is following a conservative training program as a precaution.

On Tuesday (05.07) the training program includes afternoon training at 19:00 Greek time.