Champions League has just returned and the regular football season kicked off in Europe just a few weeks ago. Even in a World Cup year, while league football started in late August, all clubs began their preseason preparations merely a week or two after Spain won the World Cup final in July. In India the Indian Super League returns in October but footballers are already back at their clubs busy with their preseason training. But, what exactly happens in a preseason at a football club?
“Pre-season is time to set the tactical principles, build the fitness base and create the team spirit and commitment for the rest of the season,” says Bengaluru FC head coach Pep Munoz. It’s critical because it is the only time of the year where coaches and their staff have the time needed to prepare players out of the competitive league weekends, he adds.
Back to fitness, football
The pre-season is important for the coaches because they want the members of their team to start communicating and understanding each other on the field of play as well as shake off their rustiness that sets in from not playing regularly. The team’s strength and conditioning coaches have their own reasons for wanting a proper pre-season: it is to return the players to match fitness. Yes, even footballers—among the fittest people in the world—do rest and relax, letting their fitness levels slip from time to time.
For FC Goa’s strength and conditioning coach Chelston Pinto, the pre-season is essentially about preparing the footballers to tolerate the demands of competitive football again. “After a break, we progressively rebuild aerobic fitness, high-speed running, repeated sprint ability, strength, power and the capacity to handle accelerations, decelerations and changes of direction,” he says.
Between the end of the footballing season and pre-season ahead of the next one, footballers are on vacation. They are free to indulge, relax, party and do what they feel like. Manchester United defender Harry Maguire famously got into a fight at a club in Greece a few years ago. Manager Pep Guardiola pulled up Manchester City midfielder Kalvin Phillips for being overweight when he returned from the summer break. While not all modern-day professional footballers party or indulge during their time off, they certainly do not train or exercise as often as they do when the season is on. Little surprise then that players are not in the best form when they return. “From a physical preparation standpoint, the idea is to build up that capacity to perform to a point where it is enough to match the demands of the full competitive season,” explains Dhruv Balaraman, the Bengaluru FC strength and conditioning coach.
India midfielder Glan Martins says during the off season he works with a personal trainer and also plays at least one relaxed football game with friends per week to retain sharpness. “A player can come back from holiday looking lean and generally fit, but that does not necessarily mean he is ready to complete a high intensity 90-minute match,” points out Pinto. Also, one casual game a week is nowhere near enough for being match ready. So, the coaches progressively introduce players to football and fitness routines in the 6-8 week-long preseason. “In the first 10 days, players return to practice with their teammates on the pitch. Normally, they have one training session on the pitch and one training session in the gym. The following two-three weeks, focus shifts to more specific actions of football and tactical dynamics with two-three gym sessions per week. The final 10 days are more competitive as we try to put the players in the competition week routines,” details Munoz.
Gradually, tactical work and small sided, possession and friendly games are introduced as the football drills become increasingly demanding with every passing day of the preseason. “From the strength and conditioning perspective, the aim is not simply to make players fit, but to prepare them to train and play repeatedly without the physical load becoming a shock to the body during the season,” chips in Balaraman. Footballers and clubs have to juggle all this in between commercial commitments, sponsor demands and friendly games.
Focus on conditioning
Weeks with reduced training usually leads to a drop in aerobic conditioning, repeated sprint capacity and tolerance to high speed running. Players also lose some of their exposure to the demanding actions that football repeatedly produces including sprinting, braking, accelerating, jumping and changing directions, says Pinto. In short, it’s their conditioning that suffered the most. “Their aerobic and anaerobic endurance is typically one of the things that detrains the fastest, especially when one is not training consistently in a team setting,” adds Balaraman.
Bengaluru FC’s typical preseason day starts with players having breakfast and relaxing at the training ground. “On some days, the coach has some tactical presentations or a video analysis session to show them. Before heading to the pitch, they usually undergo physical preparation in the gym. All players do some mobilisation, activation exercises, a few isometric strength exercises, and, maybe, a couple of plyometric or power movements, just to get the body prepped and primed for the training ahead. From there, it’s usually straight onto the pitch and full training session of 60 to 90 minutes depending on the training phase and day of the week. Some time on the pitch is also dedicated to speed work, plyometrics, change of direction and other such movements through the week,” details Balaraman.
A lot of these activities help build conditioning, including aerobic, anaerobic, repeated sprinting, sprint endurance and more. Often players have to do top-up or conditioning runs apart from the training session and football drills. Sometimes, players have two sessions in a day. However, more training is not automatically better so both Bengaluru FC and FC Goa monitor the total load of their players with GPS and heart rate monitors as recovery is also part of training. Players may also have individual injury prevention or rehabilitation work.
“A good pre-season, therefore, helps in performance and injury risk management,” sums up Pinto.