Is it posible to apply Tactical Periodization outside of Europe?

 Author: Oscar Mendez.

When I returned from China where I was working, several colleagues of mine and Friends mentioned to me there was a famous coach here in Uruguay, coach of one of the most important clubs here and who was also in charge of coaching courses in the University, said publicly that “tactical periodization can not be applied because in South America we don´t have the material conditions to do so”.

First I want to make it clear that even though I know this colleague personally, I don´t have a personal relationship with him and in no way this is based on a personal attack but rather on a different professional   point of view.

Understanding of this Methodology.

Like I mentioned before, it is not possible to understand, a methodology like T.P., created by Professor Frade if we do not begin to  realize that it is created under a different Paradigm (Paradigm of Complexity) that traditional education where we have learned before  which is the foundation of all learning done in primary, middle and University schools. We will not understand it if we see it from traditional point of view.

Doing this from the Cartesian Paradigm.

I think that I mentioned this before, when we begin learning with Professor, and also this was mentioned by the Professors teaching us, when they studied with him for the first time, we begin reading and analizing authors that are not sport related but rather scientific disciplines based on the Paradigm of Complexity that have little to do with Football or sports. This is something that many coaches complain in the beginning when studying with him. That it had little to do with specific training. Expecting maybe they give you a booklet with secret recipes or exercises.

This is the reason.

When we study with Professor Frade, the first thing that we begin to study and discuss is regarding this, about the change in Paradigm because “this is the tool that allows us to see another reality, to see the game from complexity….like a whole”.

If we really pretend to learn, understand  and apply it, we must read and study a lot, it is not enough to read a couple of books and think that we understand and know how to apply it.

I have seen things on magazines in English that have very little to do with T.P.

We must take into consideration it belongs to a  Paradigm different than before, and once we realize this we will begin to understand it very differently, and this will allow us to see it from  complexity …and in my opinion how the game of football-soocer really is.

Besides the theory, in my case have read many books in Spanish and Portuguese and hundreds of monographs or papers, am still learning. In other words, the learning process is never over because this reality is never over or constant, but dynamic, changing all the time. It is always adjusting to new scientific data.

There are no shortcuts.

 

It is not a fashion, it is not nor will be temporary.

We see sport journalists, obviously expressing themselves without any foundation, saying  that there are coaches that are older but they are discarded by clubs because they don´t use fancy terms that are used in modern football.  (recent example of Boca Jrs. Head coach Miguel Angel Russo).

It really has very little to do. The problem is that the athletes that played at higher level can notice this immediately because inevitable , specially when you don’t win, will always be comparing coaches and processes.

I want to stress that this is not linear, the age of the coach has very little to do with how he/she sees the game and its training,  from complexity , but rather the coaches’ mental structure that allow him/her to do so.

It is worth noting two aspects on this subject:

There are many Young coaches that repeat things they hear on videos or conferences of famous coaches without understanding what these terms really mean, and why and how are trained and they try to do this to fool people in sport direction in different clubs to find Jobs and place themselves on working market. Later they last very Little or are fired since they do not have a solid base or understanding of the game or its training:

They tend to make more difficult things that are simple and things that have a high level of complexity, they don´t see them as they are.

As Professor Frade says one thing is complexity, another is difficulty.

Sometimes we may use them as synonyms but they are really not.

An exercise of 3v2 can be very simple, but its complexity can be rather high that classify it this way.

Many coaches over-complicate things that are really very simple and they don’t  see  or recognize complexity that is different from difficulty.

A leaf that has fallen from a tree is not the same as that same leaf when it is a part of that same tree, where it is a system within another system. That is complexity.

The other aspect is that because they see the game from a mechanical-divided and disassociated view, are unable to understand and teach the game to their players from a complex point of view and as a whole.

The footballer maybe is not able to speak openly about these things because of intellectual deficiencies for example, but this does not imply that they don’t notice or they are dumb. We have to remember that Intelligence is not merely the intellectual capacity but rather a set of capacities  although many people still seem to think so.

As a colleague and friend told me once, “They don´t understand the game, let alone are able to teach it to their players”.

 

What has happended in the last decades, this transformation that in my opinion was generated in Spain, Portugal and later Germany is not a fashion trend, but rather a  different “perception” of understanding of the game and its training. As Romario use to say “of being able to see the game with someone else´s eyes , the eyes of Johan Cruyff”, but rather I would add the eyes of complexity and as a whole.

The isolated date in football does not matter any more.

It doesn´t matter anymore how many kmts my team has run, how much percentage of possession or Quantitavee data or numbers , but rather the relation and influence this data has in the game.

I will give and example that happened to me when I was working in Spain of seeing the game and its training from the old Paradigm to the new:

I once worked with a Physical Trainer of  same club  bu different division that I was told me once that, “He knew that his players ran 12 kmts of average per game, so he tried for his players to run this distance in the trainings, in the park, the fastest way possible because this would enable to be closer to victory than losing”. Of course his team had a lot of problems during the season and many injuries.

This is a clear example of seeing the game from two different paradigms.

That his players were not doing on an intermittent way (like in a game), that were working different energetic systems, re-utilization of lactate, that they did this on a different complexity, different positions on the pitch the effort was different (amount of sprints or amount of low intensity running for example), with a lower emotional stress, and all the possible changes that can occur in a game (numerical advantage, disadvantage, be winning, losing etc).

It is not  by accident that most Premier League teams apply this methodology or similar methodologies.

It is not random that most coaches come from these 3 countries I mentioned above (Portugal, Spain, Germany) and the fastest we open our minds to these things, the more time it will take us to catch up (in other continents) and be competitive again.

 

 

         Some consideration for its application.

 

What generated this article was the commentary by the colleagues I mentioned above and that many colleagues and friends knowing  that I was studying with Professor Frade and his people (Professor Maria Vieira, Jorge Reis, Filipe Morais, Miguel Lopes among others), told me about this Professor saying T.P. could not be applied here or really in poor places like South America where we do not have the same training facilities and materials..

And it sounded rather harsh because this “colleague” did not know that we had already applied it in youth/Grassroots football here in a 1^st Division Club (Montevideo Wanderers F.C.) from the under 16 and under 15 in the 2014 and 2015 seasons with kids born in 1999,2000 and 2001 and where many were able to play in the U-20 National Team of Uruguay and also several were sold to Europe, Mexico, Brazil and the U.S. and many of them are playing in the 1^st division squad.

Applying T.P. is more difficult in these ages because we have to understand that these ages are the ages of development specially hormonally (Testosterone and Growth hormone), and we have to pay special attention to Physical Dimension at these ages.

If we were able to do it with relative success in this age, how can it be done with kids closer to  or in a professional level?

As professor says when we train T.P. we must train specifically, it is not training in Camp Nou or Santiago Bernabeu or Man Utd ptch but similar to where we are going to play.

Prof. Frade mentions what are team is going to do in the match and what we have to do to neutralize the opponent.

You don’t need anything special rather than a space similar to where you are going to play, balls, bibs, cones, and very little else.

We train how we are going to play, this is not done running around the pitch, in a park or a beach.

Intensities are similar to how we are going to play.

We apply this type of training under several Methodologic Principles (Principle of Horizontal Alternance in Specifity) which will shape our week, and other principles like Complex Progression and Propensities. All of this done in specificity.

If we can not train like we are going to play, we will not be able to play correctly.