CRISIS SCOTLAND
Everyone’s a genius in hindsight – but if I knew 20 years ago what I know now about how to train and recover then I’d have had a different career.
The advent of sports science and more importantly the knowledge of how to use the information it brings has been a game-changer for the women’s game.
When we’re talking about revolutionising what we do with it with kids and feeding them what it can offer earlier, the more chance we have of creating a level playing field with the rest of the world.
The change between the start of my career and the end of it was like night and day.
When I first started with the national team, we had a physio and a doctor travel with us. Lovely ladies but they had no sports background whatsoever. They cared for you but without the level of specific expertise which would now be seen as a must.
However, the last time I was involved in the national team, you’d come off the training pitch for a break and the sports scientist would be sitting there with instant information to feed the coaches.
Anna Signeul would then be able to change the intensity of the training, depending on how hard the players were working.
If her players had already maxed out their time with their heart rate at a certain level, she could dial back the next part of the session – or ramp it up accordingly.
It stops players over-training and picking up niggling injuries at the end of sessions caused by tiredness. That’s why the attention to detail is so important.
At the moment, all the national players have a watch they wear in every session, whether they’re doing it at home or as a part of the team.
And your data is uploaded to the sports scientist as soon as you hit a wifi hotspot.
So if they say you should be working at 95 per cent of your maximum heart rate for at least 30 minutes in the week, and near the end of the week they see you’ve already done that, they may change it from a conditioning session to a recovery session.
It tailors you to the exact fitness levels you need and the younger we start, the more chance we have of creating the athletes necessary.
Sure, kids need to get out and play more but they should definitely be exposed to a level of sophistication from a young age because they’re getting it in other countries.
In women’s football we see a massive difference in fitness early on when we play in other countries.
Matching that has maybe been the biggest change we’ve seen and a lot of it is down to the amount of data we’re now getting.
Players come into the national set-up younger and are now far more prepared. So I’m envious of girls starting out now – but also excited that we’re now getting it.
But after months traversing the lower reaches of the game and academies north and south of the border he’s troubled as all he sees are players coming off the production line – not winners.
The former Scotland, Rangers Hearts and Celtic player is well versed. A heart-on-his-sleeve defender, he became one of the most forward-thinking coaches around, embracing new ideas and a development pathway which netted Falkirk millions.
He fears the game has gone too far in the other direction now, though.
And as the youth game in Scotland goes through another bout of navel- gazing and transition with the SFA’s Project Brave blueprint, revealed in last week, he feels the winning mentality is being left in the dressing room, drowned in a sea of sports science and leaving kids underprepared and over-pampered for the pressures they face when they make the step up.
Elvis was north of the border two weeks ago to see striker son Aaron – part of Aston Villa’s academy – play in Scotland’s Victory Shield squad. And as he sat down with
to examine the flaws he sees in the flow of talent, he mourned a regime which limits training time and takes away a young player’s resilience for the rigours of the game.
He said: “I’ve good experience of young players, inheriting them at clubs, taking them in from the loan market, and seeing their mentality
“Recently, I’ve seen academy games and listened to their coaches and I worry kids get everything they want so easily.
“We have a chance to mould them a certain way but I don’t think there’s a great enough emphasis on the psychology of the young player in what we’re moulding. We talk about the technical attributes, but the psychology, the desire to win, is being lost in all of it. And yet it’s probably the most important factor in a player’s development.
“‘It’s not about the result, it’s about development’, is a great academy cliche. But it is about the result. Part of a player’s development is to understand the importance of winning.
“You can play the game in the so-called right way and win.
“The academies are there to produce players for managers, first teams, the national teams.
“But it’s managers at the top who take the heat for the development of the young players, because ultimately they need to win games with them. And if they don’t have the mentality, which I see missing in a lot of them, then the manager is still measured by the result.”
Pressley was a sponge for every aspect of the modern game, getting his UEFA Pro Licence and taking up the reins at Falkirk.
But he despairs at what he sees as an obsession with sports science and the use of inconclusive data as a bible for coaches.
The 43-year-old said: “I’m not a