UEFA U21 Championships 2011

Totti wrote:I can't watch this game.

The stadium gives me too many bad memories...

SBSP wrote:Why isn't Wilshere playing?

arsenalap11 wrote:

SBSP wrote:Why isn't Wilshere playing?

He's a full international now, and has just played 50 games in his first full season and could burnout.

Fine Shagger wrote:

arsenalap11 wrote:

SBSP wrote:Why isn't Wilshere playing?

He's a full international now, and has just played 50 games in his first full season and could burnout.

Spain have full internationals in their squad

arsenalap11 wrote:

Fine Shagger wrote:

arsenalap11 wrote:

SBSP wrote:Why isn't Wilshere playing?

He's a full international now, and has just played 50 games in his first full season and could burnout.

Spain have full internationals in their squad

None that are starters though.

Fine Shagger wrote:You fuck off.

SBSP wrote:Why isn't Wilshere playing?

Fine Shagger wrote:

arsenalap11 wrote:

Fine Shagger wrote:

arsenalap11 wrote:

SBSP wrote:Why isn't Wilshere playing?

He's a full international now, and has just played 50 games in his first full season and could burnout.

Spain have full internationals in their squad

None that are starters though.

Only because the competition is harder. Mata and Javi Martinez are regulars in the full squad.

Fine Shagger wrote:

arsenalap11 wrote:

SBSP wrote:Why isn't Wilshere playing?

He's a full international now, and has just played 50 games in his first full season and could burnout.

Spain have full internationals in their squad

Lux wrote:Spain's squad has 0 who have played Stoke on a Tuesday night.

Denmark is the equivalent of Stoke in mainland Europe

Fine Shagger wrote:You said that before but I'm not sure what you're getting at Cov...a dig at Spain for calling them up or for England not winning the world cup?

CoVkId01 wrote:

Fine Shagger wrote:You said that before but I'm not sure what you're getting at Cov...a dig at Spain for calling them up or for England not winning the world cup?

People were just talking about the squads having senior capped players in them, so that shows the difference in the quality of the squads.

CoVkId01 wrote:"The only ones we really know are Jack Wilshere and Micah Richards, but they are not here," said Alcântara. "That is good news for us because they are good players. Richards is a very good defender, while Wilshere is probably the best footballer in the whole team. The fact they will not be playing against us is a positive thing for us. We've not really heard of any of the other players."

Fuck off Thiago

Pilkz wrote:Who is Ukraine's Number 11 with the yellow boots?

“Everyone will agree that playing in a tournament at the end of the season is not ideal but it is not impossible. A lot of people blame the number of games but if players were trained gradually in pre-season instead of building up fitness in two to three weeks by running players into the ground they would be fit and fresh at the end of the season.

“If you exhaust players even before the first Premier League game it is ridiculous. The players are already carrying fatigue within their bodies. Once the Premier League starts there is no way you can get rid of the fatigue.

“They should start the Premier League fresh and then all you have to do during the season is recover from games. Then, 60 games is no problem. If you have already lost your freshness before the start of the season you will not last that long during the season. You will hit the red zone too early.”

Arsenal assembled a dossier of GPS information to paint an alarming picture to Wilshere of how he had reached a tipping point and was at the risk of injury if he participated in the Under-21 competition.

However, Verheijen is not convinced by the system. “GPS is inaccurate,” he explained. “The error of measurement is at least 10 per cent. If the system says 1km then it can always be 900m or 1.1km.

“I work at the highest level and I would never accept an error margin of 10 per cent. That doesn’t fit with top sport. I only want to measure facts and not assumptions. ‘Yeah, you made around 60 sprints’. No. ‘You made 55 sprints’. I think GPS must increase its accuracy first before it is used at the highest level.”

“With GPS you only measure one to five measurements per second in terms of locating a player on the pitch. People use it because it is portable and cheaper and they can take it from one pitch to another. Immotio is 1,000 measurements per second. But it is not portable and, obviously, accuracy costs more money.

“In Holland we did an experiment with four different brands of GPS. One player was wearing all four systems at the same time and we had four different results. GPS only works properly with linear movement. Football is a lot of turning and twisting. Accuracy of GPS goes down with non-linear movement.

“All these so-called sports science experts in football would rather have a cheaper and portable system than an accurate system. Everyone can draw their own conclusions from that.”

“Wilshere could have played the Euro so Carroll could definitely have played the Euro,” he said. “His fitness was high enough to play Premier League in the last few weeks and months. He would actually have benefited from the Euro in terms of further fitness development after his long-term injury.

“Then all Liverpool would have to do is deal with him properly after his return. Play the Euro, three weeks off and then a gradual pre-season. Carroll would have gained fitness from playing the Euro and then in three weeks off would lose only a little fitness and gain freshness. All you have to do in pre-season is integrate him slowly back into the Liverpool first team.

“After a tournament in the summer players already have more than enough fitness in pre-season and they should focus on freshness, which is the opposite to what players normally do after a four to six week off-season. After a Euro players don't need conditioning sessions or two sessions per day in pre-season. It is about ideal periodisation. Quality instead of quantity.”

“In a lot of countries planning of training by football coaches is of a higher level than in the UK,” he explained. “Coaches in the UK should be educated to plan their football sessions properly. What you see is that in terms of fitness they all have a fitness coach and they say to them, ‘you are responsible for fitness and I’m responsible for football’.

“In Holland, almost every head coach is responsible for periodisation. They are responsible for the planning of all their sessions. They are able to have a deeper understanding of the physical consequences of their technical sessions.

“Because I had to stop playing at an early age I’m a frustrated football player who studied physiology, which is more effective than all those fitness coaches from outside football who try to study football. and the frustration was what drove me to become a coach. The problem in football is you have sports scientists who have general knowledge about conditioning but they don't understand the football context they work in. Everyone can go to university and study physiology. Not everyone can study football and develop a deeper understanding of the unwritten rules in football.”

"Not everyone can become a first-team manager but these people still have the ambition to work at the highest level.

“What they should do is become a specialist in periodisation or psychology or another area. That’s a great chance for these people to work at a big club as an assistant coach.

“Of course, sports scientists won't like this approach and maybe even see it as a threat. But if a former football player goes through the same university and studies for four years, why would he not be as good as a sports scientist? There is no reason.

“Two years ago, I did a presentation of the FA pro-licence in Coventry. I had lunch before my presentation and saw Gareth Southgate, who was at that stage in his fourth year in the Premier League. I said to the person of the FA, ‘Is Gareth also presenting on this course?’ He said, ‘No, he is one of the students’. I said, ‘What? How can you be a Premier League manager without a pro licence?’ Would you be allowed to drive in England without a driving licence? The pro licence has only existed for eight to 10 years in England, which tells you everything you need to know.”

“People can’t apply what they don’t know. Because of the gaps in coach education people from outside football jump into the gaps and coaches don’t have expertise in areas such as fitness and don’t feel responsible for injuries. That is what I constantly try to explain on Twitter.

“I already predict that in the upcoming pre-season all these English teams will be running up and down the pitch or the hill and on the first day back coaches will have players on one or two-mile runs. That is still the level of conditioning in this country. Running players into the ground is prehistoric,” he added.