Bayer Leverkusen winger Karim Bellarabi has resumed individual training after collapsing during a friendly match a week ago.
Bellarabi, 28, collapsed at half-time of the 2-0 friendly win at Wuppertaler on July 24 amid the ongoing heatwave in Germany. He was taken to hospital but released the next day.
“He’ll do the full workload on Thursday, and if he’s OK after that, he can play on Sunday,” coach Heiko Herrlich told reporters on Monday.
The Germany international said he knew the incident looked bad, telling reporters his friends and family “were so scared” because of the collapse’s similarities with that of Ajax’s Abdelahk Nouri.
The 21-year-old went into cardiac arrest during a friendly last year, and despite being revived on the pitch and airlifted to hospital, he has suffered brain damage.
“He also just collapsed,” Bellarabi said. “That was a very sad story after which every football asked himself how that could happen.”
Bellarabi said he only regained full consciousness some 30 minutes after his collapse.
“I didn’t feel that well all day, but that’s normal in preseason,” he said. “You have many days where you feel a bit weaker. I only know that I felt at half-time the power was gone a bit. But everything was just normal. There were no signals. I drank enough water.
“But then I collapsed. I wasn’t really there for the next 30 minutes, and I only came to myself again in hospital.”
However, after tests were carried out, Bellarabi has now been cleared to train again.
“I only had a heat collapse,” he said. “It could happen to anyone. The doctors reacted super.”
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