'Enjoying that I'm still alive' - Leeds United striker on track after off-field excursion

The victory and his goal were the second of their kind this week as Leeds trained and played in North Rhine-Westphalia. For the most part it was a tough, intensive week. Leeds' training base, Hotel-Residence Klosterpforte, is set up as such that players barely need to move to access everything they need. They can walk a short distance from their rooms to perfect pitches, ice baths, the gym, the dining room, table tennis or the tennis court. Portugal's base for the Euros, the hotel has been used recently by PSV - who left their branding behind when they went - and Daniel Farke has stayed previously with Norwich City. He's on the walls, in fact, in and around reception where the hotel makes plain its football heritage. “If it’s good enough for Ronaldo,” as Leeds head of security Martin Sykes keeps saying.

But the players' desire for a slight change of scenery was never made more evident than when head of football operations Adam Underwood was discussing going into the village for an ice cream and Ethan Ampadu piped up in an exciting voice. "Ice cream? Can I come?" He wasn't alone. Underwood likened the players to kids but in reality it can be almost a little oppressive staying in the one place, with the same faces, for a camp as long as this one. So any free time spent playing golf, or going for a bike ride or Friday's trip to a go-karting track, were timely tonics.

Unless, of course, your name is Joel Piroe and you thought only of returning home safely to your loved ones. "I was enjoying that I'm still alive," he told the YEP. "I showed them a picture of my fiancée and my kid, I said I want to return to them. So whatever you guys wanna do, if you wanna like play Mario Kart in real life you guys can do that but leave me out of it."

Piroe is laughing throughout his little rant. He did, we think, enjoy himself. And footage of the visit suggests the rest of the squad did too. "It's always good, you have all the different kind of bonding activities you can do but I think something like go-karting brings a little bit of adrenaline rushes as well," he said. "That's a good thing as well. At the end of the day we need moments when we can express ourselves and be a little bit silly without thinking too much about it. Last summer I wasn't here yet so I can't really compare but I do feel like in the last couple of weeks we've really grown towards each other as well. It's a change of environment, we enjoy a lot as well but we know what we're working for and you really feel that everyone is going for it."

The games help too, of course. Training without the release of competition or the chance to put into action what you've been working on, would frustrate players no end. That's why they crave involvement when the season kicks off because the whole point of their professional lives is to play football.

"Yes definitely [games are more enjoyable than training]," said Piroe. "When you play games you have even more the competitive feeling, you work on different stuff like what opposition will do against you instead of just playing with each other, where everyone knows what we're supposed to do, how we're supposed to press and play out. Playing against different teams gives a different feeling. [And] yes of course it's always enjoyable to win a game."

Piroe and Leeds look, from the body of evidence presented thus far, to be in decent nick. They overcame both of their Bundesliga 2 tests, the second of which was far stiffer than the first, and their attacking play was a pleasing feature of both games. Piroe scored two lovely goals, his young rival for the 9 role scored three. There is plainly lots more to come from both and there will need to be if Leeds are to go up at the second time of asking under Farke. But Germany has whetted the appetite for the pending season. The Championship is two weeks away. Whisper it, but it all looks on track. What a time to be alive.

"[Competition] it's always good," he said. "At the end of the season both strikers we all have to add to the tally and the more the better, it's only good. [I want to improve in] the general link up play, the amount of assists, those sorts of things. Creating chances I want to do that as well. We're all in a very good shape and I'm very happy with the moment I'm in."