Ready to put on your boots again?
{mb_sdlf_jugador_SDLF-jugador_frase-destacada}Kicking off wit the season’s first practice in the best possible shape is key to making it to the starting eleven.
Summer is not a season that is usually associated with football. In the sport’s lower categories, there aren’t any leagues until the end of September. Many players stay on holiday until their teams get back to work. Others don’t want to waste time and would rather make it to the season’s moment of truth in the ideal conditions to prove what they’re worth and stand out from the competition.
“It’s increasingly important to start the season well,” explains Carlos Rivero, technical director of the Marcet High-Performance Academy. “In every team, there’s always a race to make it onto the starting eleven as soon as the season kicks off and the players’ performance in the season’s first moments of training are a determining factor in the selection process.”
For this reason, Maël Caisson has attended Marcet’s intensive summer courses. “My teammates prefer to rest during the holidays, but I’m ambitious and becoming pro is a priority,” says the Monacoian player, who chooses to make use of his holidays by working hard and starting the preseason in full form:
During his stay at Marcet, Maël has worked on technique, tactics, strength, and endurance. Before starting the season, there’s no doubt that the physical aspect of preparation is very important: physical conditioning with weight training, preventive training, swimming pool aerobic training, bioimpedance reports and structural analysis. The objective here being muscle, tendon and cardiopulmonary strengthening to avoid possible injuries down the line.
However, we can’t completely forget about the ball. “Those preseasons that only focus on physical training are stuck in the past.” Rivero tells us: “Today, in Spain especially, it’s crucial that every player demonstrate their competency with the ball to their manager. This prep is key and, in the grand scheme of things, will no doubt determine the future of an aspiring football player.”
Adrián Melero, Pablo Melero and Jaime Barral, three under-10s at Real Madrid attended Marcet’s intensives to “improve technically and perfect their long passes” in the face of their next step to 11-a-side football. At their age, making progress technically is a priority to keep them at the level of skill that is required in a club like Madrid’s:
“Another aspect that is worked on is ‘group integration’ given that we’re training for a team sport,” adds Rivero. “Usually, in September, coming back to your team after the Summer means meeting new faces. It is, therefore, crucial to know how to get along with all teammates, old and new. This is something that managers value and consider highly because it’s directly linked to sporting performance.”
Marcet‘s sports psychologists perform specific tests to work on said integration in a personalized way throughout the whole course, adding its grain of sand to a thorough preparation so that its trainees can be at their very best for their teams from day one.