All Aboard the A(du) Train!

Danny, I disagree Europe can't have it both ways. Every year (last 3 at least) top Euro teams come to the US in July to play the "inferior MLS" often loosing. When the US teams win the first thing you hear Euro managers and press is that the Euro teams are just starting training and not fit yet, while the US teams are at mid season fitness. It can't be both, either the July MLS wins are legit or early season conditioning and fitness does make a difference.

Regarding not playing well in MLS, in fairness I don't know how much you can use RSL as a benchmark. At DC he had very good first 3 seasons top 3 in assist on the team every year, especially when you consider it was at ages 14-17. Anyway time will tell, thats the beauty of sport, as some point play on the field decides.

 

Freddy has the natural ability to excel.....and I think the quality of Benfica will benefit his style of play and vice versa. He always excels with the right players around him like in the U20 World Cup where he proved hes one of the Worlds Best for his age group. Cant wait to see how he does. His MLS teams were defensive at DCU and just plain bad squad at RSL . To me he always seems to make the right, sneaky runs and his teamates couldnt get him the ball proper.

A new Benfica fan in rural America....

Matthias

 

His most memorable plays may have been when he held onto the ball, such as when he juggled around the Brazilian defense to set up the second goal, or when Brazil's players fouled him after being beaten on the dribble, but if you track his touches in that game, he was definitely looking to pass more often than not, and in the second half his one touch passes set up many great scoring opportunities.

 

I think you are confusing Euro managers with BigSoccer posters. I don't think fitness has any more than 10% of the blame in preseason friendlies.

First of all friendlies are ALWAYS meaningless for two reasons: Experimentation and pressure. All friendlies have a high level of experimentation and it is not uncommon to see 6-10 substitutions in a preseason friendly. And there is typically no pressure placed on the players during those games.

When I was swimming in college, we had a competition season and an off season. Even in the off season, I don't think you would find a single swimmer who couldn't swim a 500m in more than 5 minutes. While performance in the middle of competition season did improve our performance, times very seldomly varied more than 5-10% from off season. And that was just amateur swimming.

I am willing to bet that no less than 90% of this team can handle 90 minutes without losing form. Once again...if you play to 120 minutes you will see a lot of players lose form, but 90 minutes is not a push.

 

dannytoone this is not swimming.
Teams lack rythm at the begining of pre-season. Its a fact.
The friendly games are for many things, one of which is, to gain competitive rythm.
Teams are composed by players, who lack rythm to handle 90 minutes, so more changes are made.
You'll see that in the first games teams change a lot, and in the later ones, already with a defined team, they try to resemble a real game with few changes and more of first team playing time.
And no, I'm not saying it's not only for rythm...

EDIT:
"If a player isn't a 90 minute player, they are quick to be replaced permanently."
you have an example in the team that contradicts what you just typed.
Rui Costa, his experience is required for big games.
He can't handle 90 minutes of high intensity of play (or he'll be out of shape for any other game).
But what he gives to the team in 60-70 minutes of playing time gives him a starting spot. He is the boss of the team.

 

I know its not swimming. It is a competitive professional sport that relies highly on endurance. That means that if you lose too much of your fitness in the offseason, it will not be tolerated by the manager and you will lose your spot on the team. Can you remember the flack that everybody gave Ronaldo's manager at Real Madrid when he was still used and couldn't last a full 90 minutes? And that is Ronaldo, one of the best talents of the century. Can you imagine what would happen if Nuno Assis couldn't handle 90 minutes?

I kinda almost understand what you mean by rhythm, even though that is a really vague and almost unusable word in the sport. And I don't see how rhythm has anything to do with fitness, but more team chemistry.

I understand your point with Rui Costa though...and he really does contribute enough in 60 minutes to justify having a sub almost permanently assigned to his position. But you have to understand that tolerance in professional sports for those who decide to slack off in the off season is VERY low. It would be a different story if they could sub in as much as they want, but I know that if I was a coach of a Champions League side, and my players lost fitness and couldn't handle 90 minutes, they would be dropped faster than a girl with STDs.

 

Whatever guys, I'm done arguing this point. All I can say is that if you think that someone in midseason fitness is going to "run circles" around the opposition because of the sole fact that he is in midseason fitness is delusional. At the very worst, both these teams are at 90% fitness, and there will be very few players who will need to be subbed because of fitness, almost all will be subbed for form.

 

Yes, in normal circumstances an average player would be put in the bench.

but you have to remember that Ronaldo, fat as a pig, still managed to score in Real Madrid.
Regardless, I think it's a lack of professionalism the way he puts weight. He had a serious injury that could have ended his career, and he has never been the same since, but it doesn't excuse his fat ass.

 

Danny, no I'm talking about managers from Boca, Celtic and Chelsea. They say the MLS clubs being in Mid season fitness and form make a difference, I believe him. This was not a commentary on the importance placed on friendlies but on the question if players are better shape pre or mid season and does a player who comes in at the 70th minute have an advantage over an equal player who has played the first 70.

Go run a 100m sprint 2 every minutes (13 seconds for run, 107 for recovery) for 70 minutes then compare your 1st time to your 35th. You will see the difference I am talking about.

It's not insulting anyperson, league or player, it's a human physiology fact.

Otherwise people would run 1 hour 9 minute marathons.

 

its more form than fitness......

dont play soccer for 2 months.....compare the first day of training to ur 60th day of training...HUUUUUUGE DIFFERENCE

 

Agreed thats why you can't compare it to swimming unless it's something like water polo. Its form and fitness...

 

Do you honestly think that the European teams even try?Or even outfit their real starting 11?lol you must be joking surly no?

 

The "we didn't really try" excuse does not go over well with top team's fan's, they expect effort always. Are you saying you would accept Benfica going to the US and not trying? If so you have lower standards than EPL fans have of their teams.

 

If you are fully trained as an endurance athlete, which a soccer player is, you will lose no more than 10 percent of your velocity at the end of your required time period (a soccer players time period is 90 minutes, a marathon runner much longer obviously). That means you use your energy wisely. You are trying to make it sound like soccer players are as dumb as little kids who have never played before.

 

If you think swimming has nothing to do with form, you are out of your mind.

 

So when a professional soccer team plays an off season exhibition against an amateur youth team, are they going to treat the match the same? Are they going to treat it like its the European cup finals? Are they going to slaughter them 50-0 just because they can? No. Because it isn't serious unless its a competition.

 

You should see the horror tackle by Kenny Miller of Celtic against DCUnited, or the elbow to the face by Drogba? They want to win.

 

Danny no not that swimming is about fitness, just that swimming isn't soccer. Now back to the real topic, which was that Adu would be at an advantage by being in mid season form and coming in at the 70th minute.

I'm not going to argue with you guys as it's clear this is about a need to prove the euro super athlete not to really discuss this topic. If you really believe a player in their 70th minute of play is not at a physical disadvantage against a player in his 1st minute of play then we can't have a reasonable conversation. There is an easy way to demonstrate, go do the 100m run test I suggest above. I will even take your numbers as fact whaterver you publish

 

Not the same, but nice veiled insult to MLS.

I'll make it simple, when professional players take the field against other professional players they want to win. Getting beat year after year makes it serious. You only get to play the we took it easy card when winning, when loosing is sounds like excuses.

 

Swimming as a sport has a lot more in common with soccer when you are talking about fitness than say baseball. But regardless, you know nothing about swimming and your little insults to the sport show it.

And I have never said anything about a player not having the advantage coming in at the 70th minute. I am saying the advantage will be minimal at best because players are trained and conditioned to last 90 minutes. It would be different if they were trained to last 70 minutes. But they aren't.

And the difference between midseason fitness and preseason fitness is very little because European team managers will not tolerate a large loss of fitness in the offseason. The offseason isn't even that long and most coaches know that it takes months to get to top level fitness...in other words, not enough time to get out of shape AND get back into shape. If you think people just sit around a get fat while playing 3 or 4 friendlies during the offseason, you are severely mistaken.

So yeah, Adu will not be able to "run circles" around people because of midseason fitness nor coming in as a sub.

And I have done the equivalent of your little test in swimming multiple times. And it doesn't take much thought to figure out that if you pace yourself instead of going all out every time, then you can make sure your time doesn't drop at all. And that is what soccer players do.

 

This just shows your ignorance and inexperience with the sport. When a team plays a preseason friendly, they have a list of worries. I will list a few likely worries:

Finding new players' likely positions
Adapting new teammates to existing teammates
Finding a venue for players to gain confidence in themselves
Creating an opportunity for players to compete for starting spots
Trying out new tactics
Getting cash for new acquisitions or operations
Increasing foreign fanbase
Winning.

Now only one of those things is a main priority during the season, which means that the rest of those things remain a priority during the offseason. Yes, winning is always wanted, but not a priority especially in comparison to the rest.

Otherwise, why would so many (i.e. all) huge clubs schedule friendlies against clearly inferior competition in foreign countries? If they wanted to win and show superiority, why not go against someone you might come across in the champions league? I'll tell you because you can't seem to figure it out yourself: If a club wants to achieve one of the previously listed goals, they can't worry about winning. Which is why they don't worry about it.

Except for Jose Mourinho though, cause it hurt his pride.

 

So we now have progress...

Mid season form vs. early season by your estimate 10%
70th minute pacing yourself vs 20 minute pacing additional advantage..

Original point stands, the player in mid season form coming in at the 70th minute has a distinct advantage.

One last not about "pacing" and why soccer is different than swimming. In swimming you set interval times, your pace. In soccer you don't get that luxury your pace as a defender. As a defender you are forced to expend effort relative to the player you are marking. In addition the quick twitch explosive actions put players in to oxygen debt repeatedly during the match building lactic acid, which decreases performance. Frequent repeated oxygen debt causes lactic build up which causes a loss of speed, it's not a point you can dispute.

Lastly, it's sad you resort to personal insult to make your point. I am neither ignorant or inexperienced in this sport or sport in general. Do you think teams build the "Brand", fan base and confidence by loosing? You find it easy to substitute your opinion over the words of the manager of the teams in question. These managers have been clear, once they put a club on the pitch they strive to win. I will admit that they experiment with the line ups but whatever line up they use, they strive to win. The one truth of sport, going half way is a sure way to get injured. Whether it be 50/50 balls, challenges, runs, not going all out is how players get hurt, people who play know this. Perhaps in swimming you can afford to not go all out but then again it's not a sport with contact.

Here is the rub... big Europe teams come to the US in August and loose.
I say that's to be expected they are in pre season training, they say they are in pre season training playing against mid season for teams. You say it's because they don't want to win. Given the choice of your reason or their managers assessment, I will go with the team managers who say it's due to pre-season form.

 

In anabolic training, which is what both swimmers and soccer players do, you are training your body to be more efficient in its use of energy so it doesn't create as much lactic acid, as well as training your body to handle and expel the lactic acid faster.

So very much like the sprinting swimmer who has to compete in multiple events, the soccer player has to reserve his energy and use it when it is needed and recover when it is not.

I'm not saying its the exact same thing, but it has more analogy than you seem to think.

 

I agree but the mix is completley diffrent. It's not like a multiple event swimmer its more like a swimmer swimming the 1500 who has to race against a sprinter every 3rd lap then has someone jump in the pool to race the final 200.

 

Boy this train has derailed, hasn't it?

Anyway, it looks like Adu will come on as a sub. http://www.sltrib.com/realsaltlake/ci_6612572