Borussia Mönchengladbach has shut the door on its final preparations for the season opener at RB Leipzig, with Eugen Polanski putting all four training sessions after the free Tuesday behind closed doors. Tim Kleindienst trained without apparent problems and without pain, and he is expected to start in Leipzig.
The closed sessions came as Mönchengladbach tried to settle its opening plan before facing a side viewed as a Champions League contender. The timing matters because there is no room for a slow build now: the first competitive test arrives away from home, and Kleindienst is one of the players most likely to shape it.
What happened inside those sessions gives a clearer picture of the setup. Ko Itakura worked in a two-man center-back pairing with Kevin Diks, while the emphasis was on passing out of defense, mutual coaching and standards. In other words, Polanski did not just want secrecy; he wanted repetition of the basic movements that decide whether a team can play through pressure or collapse under it.
That still leaves one important gap. The exact approach for RB Leipzig appears open despite the hidden sessions, which suggests the staff may have used the week to sharpen principles rather than lock in every detail. Kleindienst and Itakura are expected to play central roles on defensive set pieces and corners, where small margins often decide an opener before a season has settled into any pattern.
For Mönchengladbach, the match also carries a familiar edge. Its fans are among the club's sharpest critics in Germany, and an away result at RB Leipzig would calm an audience that will not need much convincing either way. If Polanski's closed work pays off, the first answer comes immediately in Leipzig, not later in the month.
