While soccer is ostensibly a simple game, enough theory surrounds elite soccer training to fill many a bookshelf. As exemplified by the world's top professional teams and allied youth academies, elite soccer training rarely involves full-squad scrimmages. Players move quickly through small-team drills that simulate the instantaneous decisions that they face in actual games. They also listen to lectures on the team's preferred tactics and strategy, and receive one-on-one instruction on moves to maintain ball control.
History
Elite soccer training theory owes much of its pedigree to Dutchmen Rinus Michels, the coach of Ajax in Amsterdam in the 1960s, and his disciple Johan Cruyff, a Dutch player who starred for Barcelona and later influenced the training principles at Barcelona's youth academy, La Masia. At La Masia, as at academies elsewhere in Europe, scouts bring in 7-year-old players and groom them over the next decade, ideally for the first team. Their training focuses on playing on small teams, in indoor arenas or small outdoor fields, with variations of keep-away to teach all-important control and shielding the ball.
Function
Players learn "total football," a fluid style of play where rigid labels of position are not followed and each teammate can attack, defend and hold the ball. Player intelligence is the goal, as well as technical skills. "Players have to think quickly and to play with intelligence, always knowing the next pass," Josep "Pep" Guardiola, Barcelona's coach and a former teammate of Cruyff's, told United Kingdom soccer writer Andy Mitten.
Practice
The leading figures in elite soccer training at the adult level in the 2000s are Portugal-born coach Jose Mourinho, with championships at Porto, Chelsea and Inter Milan, and his main assistant, Rui Faria. Both men hold sports science degrees and provide players with exceptional structure and preparation. Mourinho and Faria moved in 2010 from Inter Milan to Real Madrid. As do the youth academies at Ajax and Barcelona, Mourinho focuses on training using scrimmages with small teams. Ball drills are key, especially rapid-fire three-versus-three exercises. "In training I often play matches of three against three, and when the score reaches 5-4, I send the players back to the dressing room, because they are not defending properly," Mourinho says.
Time Frame
Players at Real Madrid need to be up at 8 a.m. and ready to train, all cell phones turned off, at 9:30 a.m. for an intense 90-minute session. Assistant Faria combines technical exercises with fitness training. The players also work on set pieces, such as corner kicks and free kicks, where player movements and strategies can be scripted in advance, much as with plays in American football. In advance of games, team members receive DVDs individually tailored to opponents they will be defending against, detailing the rivals' preferred foot and their tendencies.
References
- Sport Scotsman.com: World Cup 2010: Dutch Were Pioneers of Total Football, But after Exporting It to Spain Must Now Stop Opponents at Their Own Game?
- The National: La Maisa: Where Barca's Stars Are Produced
- Guardian.co.uk: How Chelsea's Thinker-man Made His Mark?
- FIFA.com: The Things They Say: Jose Mourinho
- MailOnline: Jose Mourinho's Five Points of Discipline
- "The New York Times": How a Soccer Star Is Made; Michael Sokolove; 2010
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