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As someone who's been around for every MLS pre-season, Steve Ralston has seen it all. |
Indeed, even in the years since the league has been in existence, much has changed. New England’s Steve Ralston is one of a handful of players that has played in every MLS season and, as such, the 33-year-old is well-placed to offer a perspective how today’s approach differs to that of the early days.
“I think that strength and conditioning are more prevalent now,” said Ralston. “Back when I began my career, we would just get fitness through playing and then running after practice.”
Ralston began his professional career with the now-defunct Tampa Bay Mutiny. Being based in Florida, he says, was significantly different to calling New England home, in a number of ways.
“In Tampa, it was great because we wouldn’t go anywhere. A lot of the times, other MLS teams came to us. Being (in New England), with the weather, we have to travel quite a bit. You really can’t get outside and do a lot so we’re inside doing strength and conditioning before we go traveling.”
Though preparing for the season in a more familiar environment would be preferable, the Revolution have made the best of their circumstances. As in previous years, 2008 began with a two-week stint of work almost exclusively focused on fitness and conditioning, which was the prelude to three training camps.
Visits to Bermuda, Mexico and New Orleans provided important outdoor practice and friendly matches. Furthermore, says Ralston, traveling as a team is an important bonding experience for a new-look New England club.
“I think it builds good team chemistry, especially this year with so many new faces. It is often overlooked but we have a good group of guys and it is important we get along.”
At the other end of the experience scale, Rob Valentino has been going through the rigors of an MLS pre-season for the first time. The Revs’ top pick in the 2008 SuperDraft has enjoyed his initial experiences in the professional game, though they have been a little different to what he was used to during his time at the University of San Francisco.
“It’s a world apart. In college, we had two weeks to get ready for the season, which is only two months long so you had to go in hard. Here it is more relaxed and they give you more time to ease your way in because it’s a long haul.”
Ralston and Valentino’s coaches at New England have experienced a number of different approaches to pre-season at first hand. Steve Nicol and Paul Mariner oversee the Revolution’s work with an empathetic eye on their players, as they recall their own toils on the training field.
“Early on, it was just murder,” said Mariner, whose playing career in England included spells with Ipswich and Arsenal. “We would do sprints on a running track and it would reduce seasoned professionals to tears! There was no science to it, it was just very painful.”
Nicol concurred with those harrowing recollections, adding that, above all, monotony was a regular feature of pre-seasons.
“After being there a few years, with what we did at Liverpool, by what we were doing you could tell what day of the week it was and how far in we were.”
Perhaps spurred on by the less than favorable memories of pre-seasons they endured as players, the Revs’ coaches are more than happy to pass on portions of the preparation their current squad undergoes to others. For two weeks prior to New England’s departure for Bermuda, the emphasis in training was firmly on strength and conditioning through a variety of exercises overseen by specialist coaches that are employed on a year-round basis by the club.
Mariner and Nicol’s recollections of a less-sophisticated approach during their playing days – sessions were usually run by the team’s assistant coach – have a big influence on the way the Revolution’s pre-seasons are run today. The program put in place for New England’s current squad is designed with an emphasis on quality of work, rather than quantity.
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Pre-season training methods have grown more sophisticated over the years. |
“What we are conscious of in pre-season is the time we have – eight weeks is a long time – and also the mental state of the players,” said Mariner. “We think back to when we were doing it and discuss how we felt when we were lapping and legging it. Mentally, we felt terrible, wondering if we could summon up any more energy and if we would ever get rid of the soreness.”
Soreness, though an irritant, is a manageable obstruction during pre-season. More damaging to a team’s preparations are injuries that can have an impact when the real games begin. Muscle strains and ligament damage often occur in the early weeks of a season as athletes strive to regain their match fitness.
Given that, admits Nicol, once a training plan that works is discovered, it is rarely strayed far from. New ideas, he says, are all well and good but the experiences he had during his playing days showed the Revolution coach that ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’
“From the first time I went (to Liverpool), for about the first eight years, we did the same things and it was all about getting fit without getting injured,” said Nicol. “Then some changes came to the training and I don’t think it was any coincidence that we had a lot more injuries. People always talk about new ways of doing stuff but the things we were doing 20 years ago got people fit and they never got injured.”
Though many activities associated with pre-season – running, stretching, running, lifting, running – may rank high on the list of parts of their ‘job’ that professional players do not relish, there is no doubt that this is a time that gets their pulses racing a little faster and not just due to the shuttle sprints drills they are forced to endure.
“I still get excited to come back and get going,” said Ralston. “Like I said, I want to play but you know you have to do these things as part of the job. It doesn’t do any good to moan and complain about it, we know the situation.”
Thus, though pre-season training has evolved over time from a run until you drop approach to today’s highly-scientific methods which focus on the importance of quality work and subsequent recovery, one thing that remains the same is the appetite of players for the game. Indeed, as Nicol pointed out, often the challenge to coaches is to ensure players do not try to do too much, too soon.
For players, two weeks of fitness work are made bearable by the promise of an encounter with a ball. The early running is worthwhile, knowing that first practice scrimmage gets closer by the day. There is no way to cheat the system – hard work is hard work – but the Revolution have developed a tried and trusted system that, they believe, sets them up for the rigors of the season.
Just don’t tell their coaches that today’s players are working as hard as they did!
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