| A Look into Sporting Club of Lisbon |
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| on 10 Dec 2007 | |
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Sporting Club of Portugal (Lisbon)
By Roby Stahl
Boy’s Director of the Ohio Elite Soccer academy
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.
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.
Sporting Lisbon Head Coach Laszlo Bölöni with author Roby Stahl
The SCP Academia:
Sporting
Lisbon has built a 13 million dollar facility (The Academia) that
houses 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 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.
Paulinho – A very Special Part of Sporting Lisbon
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
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