Jeremie Frimpong unexpectedly found himself on the bench for Bayer Leverkusen's Champions League match against Atlético Madrid on Tuesday evening.
The former Celtic defender had started all the games for Leverkusen this season. Odilon Kossounou replaced him in the starting XI against the Spaniards.
“Jeremie has played a lot in the last few weeks. We opted for the variant with Odilon, also because of its robustness and strength in tackles," Gerardo Seoane explained after the game.
"Jeremie just didn't have the freshness at that moment and he physically degrades relatively quickly after an hour. So we wanted to keep it for the last half hour,”
The head coach also started that benching Frimpong also worked because he came on with extra energy.
"In that sense it worked," Seoane added.
"Obviously that's the credit of the player who came into the game with that energy. He exercised the position very well and repeatedly attacked the depth with his speed,”