http://thestrikerschool.com/
This article will focus on my 10 day visit to Sporting Lisbon’s new “Academia” in February 2003 with two of my colleagues and friends, Håkan Jansson and Anton Publik as the guest of Mr. Laszlo Bölöni, head coach of SCP to observe his soccer training.
Håkan Jansson is an old friend and my former co-coach at Tyresö FF in Stockholm, Sweden and has developed many youth players for Sweden’s AllSvenska (Elite League). He is currently working with 2001 Swedish champions Hammarby FF and as an instructor for the Swedish Trainer’s Association. He and Anton authored the Scandinavian best seller, “Techniques for Developing High Speed in Soccer”. I had the pleasure to work with them in translating this outstanding book into English.
Anton Public is famous figure in both Hungary and Romania where he played for both the Romania national team and for the Bucharest team for many years. He is a well renowned sports writer in both countries and is currently living in Sweden training elite players. Anton has a unique ability to spot and train technique with elite athletes. His ideas are very insightful. Anton’s relationship with the SCP coach, Laszlo Bölöni afforded us this unique opportunity.
Sporting Lisbon is coached by Laszlo Bölöni who played professionally for Steaua Bucharest, clubs in Belgium and for A.S. Nancy in France. During this period he played 108 times for the Romanian national team. While playing he attended the prestigious French Football Federation coaching schools, obtaining his youth diplomas and his professional license involving studies with Ajax of Holland and Juventus of Serie ‘A’. After retiring as a player Laszlo coached A.S. Nancy, gaining promotion from the Second Division to the First Division. He left France to become the national team coach for Romania for one and one half years before accepting an offer to train SCP, recognized as one of Europe’s biggest Clubs.
The SCP Academia: Sporting Lisbon has built a 13 million dollar soccer facility (The Academia) that houses soccer training for all their teams from U13 to the professional side. Opening in June of 2002, it is one of the finest faculties in Europe. There are five lighted fields exclusively for training, one artificial grass field and one small stadium with seats for 1000. The ‘B’ team and youth teams for league games use this facility. There is a 65 X 45 yard roofed artificial field for training in special conditions. All the modern training necessities, i.e. free kick walls, portable goals (both regular and special size), pendulum balls etc. is provided for the coaching staff and set up by the managers
The Academia has a hotel with 46 rooms, half on the youth side for players’ aged 14 and above who might live there and half for the professional players who use them between their frequent two-a-day training sessions. Player’s lounges, dinning rooms, and club official’s offices are housed here. The youth facilities are separate for the profession ones and include state of the art weight rooms and special rehab rooms. The locker rooms are kept separately and the large staff cares for all the equipment each day.
Youth Training: The emphasis in the youth program is several-fold; the identification and recruiting of players and development both athletically and academically once they are in the SCP program. Sporting has teams from 13 years of age until 18 under the heading of Infantile and Juniors. Once a boy reaches the age of 18, he is promoted to the ‘B’ team, loaned out to another club to develop or is released. Following the French model, academic opportunities are provided at a nearby school if the player lives at the Academia. Players under the age of 13 are brought into the SCP program but do not train at the Academia but at various locations surrounding Lisbon. Occasionally they will come to the training center in order to see what lies ahead of them if they continue to develop.
Jean Paul oversees the youth soccer training set up. Under him each team is assigned two coaches, many of them former SCP players. Working as trainers (although with the professionals) are players such as Hilario who played as left back in Portugal’s semi-final appearance in the 1966 World cup and Jordanov, center-back in Bulgaria’ semi-final spot in World Cup 1994. All the trainers could play and demonstrate at a high level.
The emphasis on youth training is changing since Laszlo Bölöni arrived in 2001. The emphasis is now on the smallest of details within the individual player’s techniques. The players work on one certain technique for long periods of time. Lots of coordination training takes place first without the ball. All the players received large doses of balance activities beginning with the proper running styles yet in a relaxed manner. In the U.S. we tend to concentrate on explosive type activities but that comes later in the learning process for the SCP players. The French are very good at taking small portions of the game and then breaking them down into the precise movements needed to improve techniques. This training begins at age 6 while the player is still flexible in his learning process. These are very simple but important exercises. Even the stretching at the beginning of training and after activities is very soccer related in terms of moment.
As the player’s technique and ages grow so does the focus on the understanding of the simple procedures that are necessary to play soccer. The focus now shifts on understanding the player’s roles during 1 v 1, 2 v 1, 2 v 2, 3 v 2 and 3 v 3 play. Again it sounds simple, but these points are central to the player’s success through his career. The training was highly organized, realistic and is dependant on the coach’s knowledge and ability to instantly see and correct the smallest detail or fault. Each player was involved in each part of the session and was constantly moving. Juggling activities while moving were included and once again the emphasis was on balance and coordination. Even throw-in techniques were incorporated in to the training.
The youth program is paying dividends as several of the youth players have been or will be sold to other teams. Hugo was just sold to Newcastle of the English Premier League at a cost of 13 million dollars. Two other players, Quaresma and Christiano Ronaldo aged 18 and 19, will possibly be sold to top clubs for 10-20 million dollars. This is a two-edged sword as the money is necessary to finance the new Academia and the new stadium that is being built in time for Euro 2004, yet it is hard to compete with Portugal’s best when you are always selling your top young players. *2004 - Quaresma is now playing for Barcelona and Ronaldo is playing at Manchester United.
The Professionals: Sporting Lisbon has a proud tradition as one of the top clubs in Europe. Winner of the league and Portuguese Cup in 2001-2001, SCP was in third place as we visited. The coaches and players are under tremendous pressure from the fans and players, as the media reports on their every move. Last year two players, Jardel (Brazil) and João Pinto (Portuguese national team) scored 61 goals between them. This year, both have missed games through injuries and suspensions. It is important that SCP finish in the top two in order to automatically qualify for the Champions League. Qualification brings in large amounts of money.
The Sessions: Laszlo Bölöni is a very intelligent, reserved coach and man. His training sessions are brilliant and always relate to small precise sections of the game. All of his tactical trainings are done through the use of small-side games building up to large. Teaching is simple to complex and everything on the weekly schedule is done to a tee. Everything is timed and appropriate water breaks accounted for.
Usually the attacking players had functional training while the rest of the team was working on tactical ideas. Laszlo feels that they do not need to be involved in much of the work in the middle and defensive thirds of the field. He does have some strong ideas about their participation in the attacking third however. Of course the focus was on their tactical understanding in attacking schemes and options.
All activities ended up going to goal and especially the fitness training. I have never seen professionals work as hard as the SCP did during their explosive training sessions.
The fitness staff was more than willing to share ideas with us. All the players are tested and then put in four groups. Training was on a two-week schedule with three precisely planned activities depending on the group you were in. For example the older players did not do as much explosive work as the younger players, working instead on strength training. Emphasis was on explosive training (Force Max) for the legs and arms, strength training for overall and explosive training for the legs only. The last grouping worked outdoors. Each activity during the plyometric sessions ends with a ball function activity derived from the game and always at top speed. The players are tested every eight weeks and their individual program planned.
The players are extremely technically and can play at high speed. They however have a great ability to be relaxed on the ball under pressure. Tactically they are not as sophisticated as their professional counterparts of other European nations. Laszlo is bringing this dimension to the team.
Paulinho: There is a very special story at SCP. In Lisbon there was a young boy who was hit by a car and lived for months in a coma. During this time his family abandoned him and he was given very little chance to survive. During his coma months the only thing that seemed to get any response from him was when the doctors would start talking about Sporting Lisbon. When he eventually got better the doctors asked if he Sporting would take care of him. He has been at the club for 20 years now helping to take care of the equipment. He is loved by all the players and fans and is one of the most recognizable personalities on the team. The times when he leads the team out, the biggest cheer is for Paulinho. He never pays for anything when out in Lisbon, lives by himself and the players take turns inviting him to their houses for the holidays. In 2000 FIFA recognized him with a special award at their world awards ceremonies. It was truly heartwarming to see how the players played with Paulinho, now 34, and teased him but always looked out for him.
The Games: Lisbon has three Division One teams and we saw them all. We had the privilege of meeting and dinning with my old fiend and current Portuguese national team goalkeeping coach Dan Gaspar. Dan is one of the top goalkeeper trainers in the world and has been the coach for many professional goalkeepers and teams including Sporting Lisbon, Grampus Eight (Japan), the Metro Stars (MLS) and the Connecticut Wolves of the ‘A’ League. Over the years Dan and I have had many long discussions on developing youth players. I value his principles and innovative ideas. Dan was just returning from the Portugal – Italy national team match, which they lost. Together we traveled to watch Belenenses defeat Varzim 4-1 in the afternoon. Afterwards Dan presented me with his Portuguese national team shirt, which I will always treasure! *Note – Dan is now the assistant coach at Benfica.
That night we were Laszlo Bölöni’s guests at the Sporting – Braga game at the Estádio José Alvaladehe t (30,000). We walked out the same tunnel the teams came out just prior to kickoff and were treated to a superb 2-0 win. Afterwards we sat with Laszlo in his stadium office, went back to his home and then out to dinner to his favorite restaurant. It was a priceless opportunity to pick one of the great coach’s brains.
Midweek the Columbus Crew of the MLS played a game at the Academia versus the ‘B’ team. The Crew was just starting preseason-training camp and despite the 2-1 loss looked very promising. The next day we visited with the Crew coaches at the Rio Maior training facility. That night we were USISL (‘A’ League and PDL) president Francisco Marcos’ guest at his beautiful coastal home and at his favorite restaurant. Obviously the discussions were about cooperation’s between MLS and youth clubs and their Portuguese counterparts.
The last day of our stay we spent at the Academia watching the ‘A’ team train. It was hard to say goodbye to all the friends we had made on the staff. Laszlo presented each of us with a Sporting Lisbon game jersey with our name printed on the back. It is a memento that will be framed and hanging in my den along with other priceless soccer treasures from my travels. That night we watched Benfica destroy Vitória 6-2. This game was full of all the flag waving and flares that one sees on television with European games.
Summary: Over the course of my professional playing and coaching career I have been to many top quality facilities and clubs. None can hold a candle to the Academia of Sporting Lisbon. I went hoping to seek more knowledge in the development of soccer training for youth players. I came back renewed with many great ideas and, more importantly, with many new colleagues and friends