MANE HAS A NEED FOR SPEED
Sadio’s drive was relentless... he wanted extra sprint work even on match days, reveals his former Saints coach
THE race for the top is a marathon, not a sprint – unless you are Liverpool’s Sadio Mane.
That’s the view of former Everton, Southampton and Holland fitness coach Jan Kluitenberg.
The Dutchman spent over a year at St Mary’s working with Senegal wing wizard Mane and his now Anfield team-mate, Holland’s Virgil van Dijk, before moving from Southampton to Everton with boss Ronald Koeman.
Kluitenberg has seen at first hand the incredible steps that both players have undertaken to be the very best.
He revealed: “Every day before the game, Sadio came to me the first time and said, ‘Jan, I want to do six sprints of 60 metres’
“I said, ‘Sadio, we trained the whole week. You need to be ready for tomorrow, so we don’t do it’.
“‘He said, ‘Well if you won’t help me, I will do it by myself !’
“I explained to Ronald Koeman, ‘Sadio wants to do some sprint exercises before the game tomorrow’.
“He said, ‘Jan, Sadio knows his body, so control him in the things he wants to do’.
“I took some steps, but not 60 metres! But the sprints the day before the game was for him something special to prepare his body. It was great to work with
Sadio. He’s a good guy, a really good professional and also with a good heart.”
Mane’s relentless drive for perfection is closely matched by Van Dijk, who Kluitenberg also worked with at Southampton and then later for the Dutch national team.
But Kluitenberg said: “We had to push Virgil sometimes.
“There were moments when Ronald was really critical, but the reason was always to help him make the step up as a defender and in his career as a football player.
“But he grew as a person and as a leader.
“And I think the steps he made at Liverpool, working with players on a really high level and also in the Champions League, gave him great experience.”
Kluitenberg, 59, has also enjoyed seeing the development
of homegrown players from his time at Everton, including a fully-fledged England international in the shape of Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
“He’s a great performer,” said the former Toffees man.
“He’s a real No.9, strong with duels and with his headers, and
I think he deserves to be part of the national team.
“You could see from the academy side that they had a lot of quality there at Everton.
“Sometimes with young players it takes a little bit more time for them to be ready to take the next step up. But if you see
how some of those players have developed over the last few years, they did it great.”
Kluitenberg will be keeping tabs on the outcome of today’s Anfield encounter from a distance. He is now based in Abu Dhabi, as head of conditioning at Al Jazira Club.