Ramblings: A new approach to training

By: Marco | October 5th, 2009

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What do Smokey Bears have to do with football training? You ask. Hypothetically everything. Footballers are notorious whiny little girls. If they don’t get a couple hundred thousand a week with a ninety-eight hundred thousand goal bonus with god knows how many in appearances, release, relegation, wage rise per yer, blalalla they start talking about leaving.

You have the Cristiano Ronaldo’s of the world prancing around, showing up late for training and half-assing it all day. They play for money and fame and that’s about it. Sure they still win and look pretty but maybe that isn’t enough.

Maybe they need a little more motivation. Imagine to the teams surprise that the coaches have been replaced with drill instructors from Parris Island and if you leave the training within the next month or two you will be released. The players are forced to stay and endure hell. Smokeys spitting right in your face and screaming about the way your jersey looks or how your Mamma’s chicken dumplings really suck.

Then they start the day the Marine corp way with PT. PT PT everyday. After fifty situps, pushups and pullups they go on a ten mile conditioning run. After that maybe some log pt and another conditioning run. They run another mile to get some lunch, they have to eat it within a certain amount of time and if they leave anything on the plate you get chewed out and have an extra hundred pushups coming your way. After eating they throw some flashbangs and smoke grenades in and get them back out on the pitch for another ten mile run, pushups, situps, log pt heck maybe do some field games and haul big logs / boats around. At the end of the day they finish off with a final conditioning run at 3 in the morning and hit the showers. Then they wake up at five in the morning for the same thing. Give them a few weeks and your team would be so ripped, disciplined and effective you would be epic. Ronaldo would actually try and tackle the other players and win the ball back.

It’s just in theory and honestly probably wouldn’t work but I would pay to watch that instead of half the crap on TV. Gattuso would love everyday of it. Instead of a bunch of 18 year olds you get pretty Italian guys flicking their hair, Spanish guys prancing around, Portuguese doing whatever they do you name it.

Of course the only problem is that the instructors haven’t touched a football and probably never will. Nor would they even know the first bit about the sport at all. To them Cristiano Ronaldo is some guy they want to eat, digest and poop out.