Philosophical specifics are the most emphasized realization of a teams tactics.
I do not have as much of an intimate understanding of the tactical schemes and sport vernacular associated with European football so I can’t provide an expert example in this regard.
Generally, however, my point is that the tactics refer to the positional maneuvers, placement/alignment, and countermeasures that are trained in order to maximize offensive and defensive strength against the varied tactical approaches of the opponent.
Philosophy comes into play when we discuss what is most heavily emphasized, what is the coaching staff and team most passionately committed to, within a team’s offensive and defensive tactical approach.
I would categorize tactical measures as being calculated and inorganic (more mathematical) while philosophical measures are calculated and organic (rooted in passion/belief/commitment)
Thus, the philosophical specifics of a team’s tactical approach must be addressed in the physical preparation.
I’m curious as to which teams-either professional or national-advocate true speed training-under alactic conditions?
I guess it’s more difficult for national teams to have their athletes under a specific program very long since their players spend so much time in their careers with their professional clubs.
Is this a more recent trend of players/coaches using true speed training/development in the training of the players or has it always been present, if even in smaller numbers?
I can’t speak for every team/club, but what seems to be popular in training is more like low intensity obstacle courses and lots of change of direction drills.
Yes - very common type of training where I’m from. Reminds me of those dog obstacle courses where they run around the poles, over hurdles and up-and-down ramps. Except with the soccer players, they don’t have an overweight female owner shadowing them through the course throwing them doggie treats.
I remember one day seeing a U18 girls team do “SAQ” session. It consisted of a 200+meter long obstacle course interspersed with hurdles, cone, flags, colorful rings, and took a whopping 55 seconds to complete, as I did time it out of curiosity.
Pioneer
I’m curious as to which teams-either professional or national-advocate true speed training-under alactic conditions?
I guess it’s more difficult for national teams to have their athletes under a specific program very long since their players spend so much time in their careers with their professional clubs.
Is this a more recent trend of players/coaches using true speed training/development in the training of the players or has it always been present, if even in smaller numbers?
Back to serious matters, maybe a few others on board can give experiences. It appears in the US, the consensus is the “specificity” issue. These goofy courses are set up to try to mimic one of the 1 million possible sequences involved in a match. Yes players have to jump over tackles at time, go up for headers, make aggressive checks etc, as Charlie had pointed out, save those skills for pre-season when team tactics and technical work becomes important. Let off-season work be more general. Improve fitness via tempo, speed, strength, lots of med ball throws etc and players will out perform others. I have seen it in dozens of cases for the past few years now.
A story from this past week from a local university “S&C.” I work with a player at this school, and she has been busting ass with me since April. She attended a “hard session” at school last week “to see if she has been doing any work this summer”(is the quote from the S&C). Supposedly the girls with s&C have been “busting their asses,” running 5 miles a day, lots of agility cone drills blah blah blah.
From reports of this training session, these girls saw nothing but my girl’s butt as she ran by them in everything they did and left the S&C speechless, and the players literally asked her what she has been doing.
Occasionally it’s done with players returning from rehab or injury, but not with team players really in the team setting.
As for actual speed work as I’d define it - probably never!
But you must remember the time constraints in soccer are huge and far greater than most realize, so the time available for it are limited anyway (whether or not you use the hurdles and toys!).
I worked with a quartet of female players from one of the premier clubs around here a couple of years ago.
They too were subject to 1-2mile run tests and the like.
All the training I programmed consisted of speed work, explosive med ball, power speed, tempo, cardiac output, calisthenics, conservative general weight training, and a small volume of specialized preparatory training.
In the spirit of Charlie, the the bulk of the training was geared to improve max output in favor of operational capacity; as the tempo took care of a certain degree of capacity. anyway. Although, I did introduce alactic capacity as the season drew near.
At any rate, of the four girls, they are now playing at Penn State, Ohio State, Youngstown State, and Dayton, respectively.
She can do 40x100m tempos in under 18 sec with 35 second rest, can also do double big circuit in under 18sec/36 second, can run under a 14 min 2 mile. She is plenty fit.
But I guess since I am not running these with her then my program isn’t very good, since I can’t possibly understand what she is going through. But since I have 6 girls at 6 different colleges who all have their teams fitness test records, I obviously don’t know what I am doing.
Why would it be so hard to believe that the program ESTI outlined could be effective?
I think it highly likely that a player could benefit from such a program and derive most of their specific conditioning from any skill development sessions, scrimmaging and most importantly, games.
Thanks for the detailed response ESTI. Re: your last paragraph, I wonder if the s & c guy was also asking what your girl had been doing as he’s the one who really needs to know what type of program helped her achieve that condition.
This actually is a bit personal, since I applied for his job and was never interviewed. He knew about this etc. The girl doesn’t like him either, so we say we are doing secret Russian training programs
I used to live in Troy and Rochester-many years ago. Though it is unrelated, one of our current athlete’s sister (whom I’ve never met) was an ATC at Oakland univ.
