VfB's winter camp has certainly made its mark on Esswein, who required two stitches to a cut on his nose on the second day of training. The wound did not keep him sidelined for long, though, with the 28-year-old returning to the pitch with a plaster after a brief period of treatment. He then continued doing what he was brought in to do: inject pace in the game.
"Markus Weinzierl told me I should use my strengths," Esswein said on Monday. "That's my speed and dynamism, which I'll ideally use to create goals and also to score myself." Weinzierl is well aware of the attacker's qualities, having worked together at FC Augsburg between 2014 and 2016.
"He was an important factor in me coming here because I did well under him at Augsburg," said Esswein, who is also already familiar with a few faces in the VfB changing room. The winter signing played alongside Daniel Didavi at Nuremberg and for Germany's youth teams, and knows Erik Thommy and Christian Gentner from his time at Augsburg and Wolfsburg respectively.
Now the midfielder has his sights set on helping VfB recover from a disappointing first half of the season, while he is also keen to get back to his best after struggling for game time at Hertha BSC: "I want to play and help the team so that we can move out of the lower third of the table as quickly as possible. I'm giving my all in training in order to be able to do that."
That much was evident in the club's first friendly of the year against FC Utrecht, when Esswein – who was one of just three players to go the full 90 minutes – went close to grabbing an equaliser late on, only to see his shot hit the post. "It went better than I expected in terms of my fitness," he said.