BERLIN (AFP) - Germany's football team trained on Monday for the first time since the suicide of goalkeeper Robert Enke, with coach Joachim Loew saying the players were doing their best to return to normality.
"I think that after yesterday's memorial service, which was very important for us all to attend ... we must now try to get back into a normal rhythm, to look ahead," Loew told reporters.
Enke, who was suffering from depression for many years, threw himself under a train last Tuesday, leaving the world of German football in a state of shock. He was 32.
The national team took part in a memorial service attended by around 35,000 fans at Enke's home ground in Hanover before he was buried at a nearby cemetery next to his two-year-old daughter, who died in 2006.
Germany cancelled a friendly against Chile on Saturday out of respect for Enke. On Wednesday the team faces Ivory Coast in a friendly at Gelsenkirchen.
"The next one or two days will of course be important for me as coach in order to observe the players and talk to them to see who is capable and who has the strength to perform well on Wednesday," Loew said.
Enke was understudy to Germany's then first-team keeper Jens Lehmann during the 2008 European championships and took over in goal for Germany when Lehmann retired in August that year.
A stomach bug in September caused him to pull out of the national squad, but recently he returned to play for his club Hanover 96 and he had a good chance of being selected for next year's World Cup finals in South Africa.
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