Wow, that must have hurt - both the training but more importantly, missing out on the titles.
This may be the wrong thread to post this, but I didn’t want to start another one.
Recently one of the top Norwegian squads changed choaches from one who believe in less mileage and more high-intensity soccer work to one who is described as “old school”.
After a few weeks the players had to undergo a test to gauge their “level of fitness”. This test was reportedly 16x400 meters. At what intensity I don’t know.
What would such a test (done halfway through the off-season, which is around 5 months here) tell the coach about the players “level of fitness”?
-
I had a Russian coach a few years back when I played in the first division in Sweden (eg second division after allsvenskan) that liked to start the training by putting the goals on each side of half a field and the he split the squat up in two halves and put the goalies in the goals. The one player gave a cross to another player at the other goal, you where then supposed to receive the ball, advance about 15m and then shot at the other goalie. After the shot you had to run 100% to the place where the other player had given you the cross. Needless to say we had a few injuries during “warm up” that year!
-
This year I was thinking of making a comeback with a local second division team. Everything was going fine and I was offered a contract during the tryouts. Before the contract was signed I started to train with during the offseason practice. This consisted of going to the woods and run 4x2km under 7min 30sek. Then we ran uphill, aprox. 20degres incline, for 120-150m and to finish it of we did some stair running. This was all made on asphalt or dirt covered with ice. Despite no previous knee injuries my knee swell up like a balloon after 3 weeks. Being a few moths from my physiotherapy degree I pointed out to the coach that the practice wasn’t working (2 other players in the team had the exact same trouble). The coach didn’t listen so I decided not to make my comeback this year
We used to do this type of practice when I was in Helsingborg (B-squad) and the club was trained by Åke Hareide. We hade to run every lap under 1min and 20sek during the end of the preseason. This seamed to be one of Åke’s favorite exercises during the preseason.
What are your thoughts on the other soccer thread (CF on soccer)?
To close to intensive tempo for my liking. Can’t argue with the results though.
I would never use that type of practice neither. To put in Åke’s defense he was extremely clear on that you never should build up any lactate during the runs. I you felt that you did you were allowed to run at a slower pace. Although I rarely happened that somebody complained of course, you don’t want to seem weak in front the rest of the team.
In concern to the results Åke have produced I would say it’s for the most part due to very good tactics. If I was to be head coach of a team now I think I would use about 90% of Åke’s ideas. Everybody I’ve talked to that was in the club while Åke was there are on a similar path. Some of the older players that went on to coaching a few years back have many already had success using Åke influenced tactics.
Update, how the season went for the team…
After the first game the team captain said to the papers that the team was I great shape “we have work really hard the entire pre-season” he said. Yesterday there was a new article where the same captain tried to analyze the season and why the “only” came second. He blamed it on all of the injuries in key players during the season. 3 players were away for most of the season due to ACL injuries and 2 other players also misted big parts of it due to a bad groin and a hamstring issue respectively.
There’s now way that was just bad luck!