Two Coaches & a Coffee

Season 2, Episode 21

• Darren Burgess & Jason Weber • Season 2 • Episode 21

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Ever wondered how elite athletes manage to stay at peak performance right before the most crucial matches of their careers? Join us on "Two Coaches and a Coffee" as we uncover the secrets behind the English football team's advance to the European finals. We share insights from our personal experiences in the Rugby World Cup 2003 and AFL finals, offering a rich discussion on the balancing act of training intensity and recovery. Discover how strategic planning and mitigating external pressures can make a significant difference in athletes' performance.

In this episode, we also delve into the post-tournament phase, a critical time when top players like Harry Kane, Kyle Walker, and Ollie Watkins must be seamlessly reintegrated into their club teams. Learn how clubs walk the tightrope of providing adequate rest while keeping these athletes match-ready. We discuss the importance of individualized approaches and strong communication between clubs and coaches to prevent injuries and ensure player availability throughout the season. To round off the conversation, we explore strategies for effective player management, all while savoring a good coffee.

Sponsored by SPEEDSIG.com

Jason Weber:

G'day and welcome to Two Coaches and a Coffee. I'm sitting here with three shots in my cup. What have you got, Darren?

Darren Burgess:

Two shots, but it is in the afternoon for me, oh that's right.

Jason Weber:

It's morning where I am and this is my I think my ballpark. My sixth shot since about five this morning. So we are flying, my friend. It has been a busy period and it's about to ramp in the Northern Hemisphere. We've got England going to the finals in Europe. What are you thinking there? What have you seen? What's happening there?

Darren Burgess:

It's been interesting, because the talk at the start and I certainly was part of it in some, I think I mentioned last week was some UK as part of my role with FIFPro sort of spoke about how the English players have played a lot of minutes and so they have been sort of roundly criticised up until the last game, I would think, of being sort of boring and just getting through and not being very dynamic. And then the Swiss game they were probably the better team and then to get through on penalties though, and then this morning they won in the 90th minute and, interestingly, a lot of their goals have been in the last couple of minutes.

Jason Weber:

Late stages.

Darren Burgess:

Yeah, their individual brillianceiance. The goal this morning from Watkins was outstanding and, um, uh, the goals from Bellingham and Saka previously were again moments of individual brilliance, which is why you pay those guys the big bucks and why you you know why you have them so, uh, happy for them. Be an awesome game England, england-spain. And yeah, the preparation, I guess, is our wheelhouse between now and it's now Thursday morning our time and I think the game's on Monday morning, so they've got three days to prep. How's that looking for you?

Jason Weber:

Mate, I think the closest I can come is World Cup 2003. So we went to the final and, interestingly so, 2003,. For all the young pups out there, that was pre-GPS, pre all that stuff. So we were doing the RPE thing and we did that quite extensively and to this day the data still resonates. Our RPE is right up in the build-up to the. We sort of built right up until the quarters and then dropped off tapered.

Jason Weber:

There's definitely, you know, convincing the coach to not practice more at the cost of expending energy and creating fatigue is the big deal. Now, back in the day 2003, for mine, eddie Jones and I, we were on the same page. We had a great plan. We got beaten by a better team in the final, that's it. It wasn't for I would never. I would say the preparation was as great as we could have made it with the people we had.

Jason Weber:

So, being on that same page, what I have seen in AFL is the build to finals and the coach starts to panic and does more and more and more, and I've got plenty of data to support. We do more and more and more and then all of a sudden we get people falling off the perch. You know, overuse, calf injuries and in my AFL experience that caused a lot of drama. So there's no, absolutely nothing clearer in my mind than the ability to remove fatigue and let the players do what they've got to do. What about you, mate? You've been to a couple of grand finals, you've won a few, you've got more gongs than.

Jason Weber:

I do?

Darren Burgess:

Oh no, you know FA Cup and Carling Cup and things like that. What tends to happen I think we've spoken about this briefly previously is, I think you've just got to take away the sources of fatigue for the player, so the training is actually the easy part and that's the um, the part where they're actually escaping from their phone, going off people having fatigue, people wanting to congratulate them, parents wanting complaining about hotel rooms and you know just anything and everything. And Matching up.

Darren Burgess:

Yeah, all of that. I just happened to be in Melbourne for the game, or I'm in London when we made the FA Cup final with Liverpool way back when, yeah, I had people from Australia saying any chance you can get me a car. I'm a lifelong Liverpool fan and you know, these are people that you don't really know particularly well, so I can only imagine what it would be like for a player. So taking away those sources of fatigue, so sleep, nutrition, training and your point around making sure that there's not extra meetings, there's not extra information going in, so there's mental fatigue.

Jason Weber:

Not extra reps, we don't need more reps You're not going to learn more.

Darren Burgess:

Yeah, only ever going to lose, only going to lose in that week, so yeah. So I think it's important that you know, with all the monitoring tools that we have and I'm sure that at England's and Spain's disposal they'll be right across all of that and whatever they've done has clearly worked, because they've arguably been the two best teams in the tournament.

Jason Weber:

So I'm but even withstanding the argument that England were boring, like I've got no idea, but you could imagine like it's a championship. You have to win every game, like the Olympic final in the 100 metres is not one race, it's a championship. You've got to get through every race.

Darren Burgess:

It doesn't matter if you come second in a heat I have friends who are saying Southgate, this is probably his last game and all this, forget it. His record's pretty good, he's doing something right.

Jason Weber:

Yeah Well, let's change tact, mate. So this is a final, the Euro's finishing, but at the same time you've got English Premier League just about to. They're just about to go back and do a couple of weeks prep, go to America and do their international thing. We've got NFL. So I met with one of my NFL teams last night. They're literally like next Friday they're on, they're all in the door. You've got college football's all just gone back, Everyone's now they're only two or three weeks away from their camp and they'll go camp for a period for a couple of weeks and then play some games and then college football starts. So we've both seen a little bit of the NFL this year in terms of discussion, specifically about planning and college football. Mate, what have you seen? What have you seen in the planning around camps? And we know there's horror stories. What have you seen? What have you seen in the planning around camps? And and we know there's horror stories what have you seen?

Darren Burgess:

yeah, it's the nfl players association. Firstly puts a lot ring fences, a lot of um, a lot of make, a lot of stipulations about when you can and can't train, when you can train with pads, when you can't, how many days off, how many rest days, even stipulate what the first week needs to look like. So that's the first thing to to try and understand is a lot of the freedom to do whatever you want is taken away, and that's okay. They're the rules and that's what the players have negotiated. So, no problem, let's follow those.

Darren Burgess:

Um, that's the first thing. The second thing is you're allowed one day to assess right, so literally one day to assess where the players are at. So I think that's the first thing. The second thing is you're allowed one day to assess right, so literally one day to assess where the players are at. So I think that's an important day to not waste. I think there's a mental and physical component to that. From there, your ability to individualise is, from my experience, either consulting or working or chatting with NFL teams is limited to the superstars. You know the superstars, where injury is, you know, incredibly damaging to teams and coaches. Coaches are understandably a little bit more relaxed when it comes to letting some of the superstars miss reps.

Darren Burgess:

The sort of mid-tier ones are the ones who, who, get in those in those five to six week camp periods which are genuinely, genuinely players arriving at seven and leaving at eight or nine. And if you know, sometimes, um, I speak to our coaches or players about um, too many meetings and too many this and too many that, and I look at one of those schedules in the nfl and just go.

Jason Weber:

My goodness, it's just a different world oh it is, and you look at the numbers of players. So one of the discussions I was involved in last night was the this monitoring idea and clearly you know we're doing the speed sick thing, yeah Now. But they've got 100 guys coming into camp, 110 coming into camp over the next week. And then they said to me well, we've got a new, you know, head of football who comes from another environment. He wants to turn over the bottom. I think they said 20% of the list, 25% of the list. He wants to completely gut that bottom.

Jason Weber:

I think they said 20% of the list, 25% of the list. He wants to completely gut that in the next couple of weeks and rotate them out. So they said, like we're going to have 100 and whatever let's say 110. Then we're going to lose 25 or whatever and we add a new 25 in. And so the whole concept of how they monitor their athletes is got to be different and, like you said, it comes down to where. Where's the big money, who are the players who are gonna make a difference? And that's where their focus is on. Um, but the notion that, yeah, you're just putting these guys in through, they're like cattle, turn them up, bring them in a truck, put them down, the grate in they go.

Darren Burgess:

It's truly attritional.

Darren Burgess:

You can only do what you can do, and if players haven't prepped well, they know what's coming. Like these guys, whether it's players, or whether it's the veterans or the rookies, they all know what's coming. And if they haven't prepped appropriately, it's not up to the strength and conditioning staff at each club to make up for poor preparation, because it just can't happen in that environment. So there needs to be a level of acceptance in that and of course you're going to put in risk mitigation strategies and that's what your job is in that time. And you know we've both, as you said, been exposed to a little bit of it, and it's pretty hard yards for the staff working in NFL clubs because they can get the blame when things go wrong, but the environment is not set for that. So it's a matter of how can we cause the least damage in this amount of time and yet still sort of taper and periodise for the season that's to come.

Jason Weber:

And for some like, obviously a couple of months ago, when they were doing their OTAs. So the optional training sessions, I think there was some video of some of the more elite players are doing their OTAs. So the optional training sessions, I think there was some video of some of the more elite players coming in and doing those and you kind of think, well, that's good being able to get them to build under control. That's something we're more, I guess, used to in the AFL-type systems where we get the players through a period. But the ones I know what's his name out of New York Jets Rodgers the quarterback.

Darren Burgess:

So he's coming in Aaron Rodgers, yeah.

Jason Weber:

Aaron Rodgers with his Achilles. He's coming in and I don't know this for a fact, but he's coming in and he's straight into practice and it's like I wonder if the medical I wonder if conditions up know where he's at and have confidence that he's done enough work, that he's going to. I mean, aaron rogers has been around so I'm assuming he knows he's ready. But there's a lot of guesswork in there and it does speak to sometimes what influence like can we have when we're conditioning our athletes? What time have you got to actually make changes? And are you more like you just said, like let's try and not do damage, let's try and keep them healthy, and there's a role in that. But there's also a big role when you look at the States and I think this is changing in Australia ever so slightly is the role of the private facility, because these athletes go, they'll do their season with a club and so in the US a guy might play on the East Coast but he lives and his family's on the West Coast. He'll go back to the West Coast and train there, but he'll train with quite often one of the guys that he may have come up with through college.

Jason Weber:

Now I know some of my college clients again through SpeedSea they will be running team training for their college team. But then on the sideline down here you've got Green Bay Packers guys and you know whomever else. You've got NFL players because they go back to their college conditioning coach because that's where they did a lot of work formatively. So it means the path is not necessarily linear. So your whole development structure is a bit ad hoc. So it becomes who, if you're lucky enough to get a good, good people around you, because very even though it's a team sport, nfl seems to be very individual a lot in the development phase I'm sure it is and I used to think I don't know, it's a long time ago you could go over there and make a difference and you could just set up some really good.

Darren Burgess:

But the more structures and the more I speak to people who are over there working, there's an acceptance. Any US people listening to this would just be like, yeah, that's just how it is, whereas in the NFL we don't. Yeah, we have nothing like that. Of course it's emerging private facilities and and their exposure to um, you know, to some of the athletes, some of the professional athletes, but nowhere near um as much. So it it's uh, the us system. Um is designed, as you said, for individual athletes to then perform in a team setting and once you get into those team environments, for staff like us and whether it's at a director level or an S&C level, essentially you're trying to or you ought to be, trying to, establish what the chronic load is. The appropriate chronic load is get there in the safest possible way and then hold them there in season. And so you look at we spoke about that quarterback series, about Mahomes going to his private facility, that's right.

Darren Burgess:

Doing all his gym stuff at the private facility. There's some really good videos of Christian McCaffrey running back and slash receipt slash all-round legend for 49ers. Some of the stuff that he's doing looks to be incredible, but it's maintaining chronic load. That's what he's trying to do and the way in which you and I might monitor that is probably different versus how the Kansas City Chiefs or 49ers monitor it, but that's essentially the role that you're trying to do and it is, as you said, a lot of guesswork, because guys are going to be turning up and you've got no idea, really, because you're not allowed to know what they've done for the previous four weeks.

Jason Weber:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely Challenging environment, Do you, given that EPL starting exactly the same, and we know we've talked before about that so you're going to have guys coming off epl season into a euro season and then they're going to come. So the english guys are going to come out of english and spain, they're going to come out of playing this week or next week, a couple of days, and they're going to go straight. Are they going to go straight back to their ePL clubs, do you think, or will they get a window?

Darren Burgess:

You start in a month. So these guys have been training all the way through and let's say, england wins the Euros probably going to have a couple of days celebration, maybe a parade, I imagine, because it would be a massive achievement. And then the task becomes how long do you give them? There's nothing mandated, so each club then determines. So Bayern Munich will say I'm not sure how long we're going to give Harry Kane off and Manchester City Kyle Walker. But essentially, the key in that scenario is these guys are fit, they're fine, right. So don't try and add load to it even though they've had two weeks off. Don't try and bring them back into match load and say that you know either they can't play or, um no, we need, you know, three or four more weeks to build them back up. This is not perfect, right. By any stretch of the imagination, it's not imagination, it's not perfect. But don't complicate it any further.

Darren Burgess:

And I'm sure that the practitioner is most of the practitioners in premier league know this oh yeah, if they're ready to go, you just have a look at them when they come back in, do a quick assessment, speak to them about what they've done the past two weeks which ought to be nothing, and laying in a, getting some sun, and then you just pinch hit times throughout over the next five, six months, probably up until sort of January, where you can give those particular players time off. It might be a lower level cup game. It might be a game in which you've got two outstanding right backs, so Kyle Walker can take a couple of games off and not send him away. Or, like I said, harry Kane.

Darren Burgess:

There might be better strikers in Bayern's reserve team that could come and play in for a game or two, or you just give them a day or two here or there. So that's the key, and I'm sure they're all across this. But where people make mistakes, I think is go. Right now I've got my European championship winning player. I need to work with him one-on-one to bring him up to speed. He's up to speed, he's fine.

Jason Weber:

So that's probably the point of this, berjo, it's not, I think if we, you know, we talk to Sam Wilson at Arsenal yeah, I bet he's across it. But I think the point for us is the people who aren't there and the people who are coming up is to hear well, like, what do you do? So I mean your advice? Right, there is, and what I do see around the place is people overplaying their hand, Like I'm going to have this huge impact on this athlete because I'm going to have two weeks or three weeks to adapt all this. I'm like it isn't going to happen, particularly, with those guys.

Jason Weber:

We've talked about. You said that chronic low. They're trained, they're prepared to play. That's what they're conditioned for. That's how football soccer works, is they play, and they play and they play.

Darren Burgess:

Well, the other mistake that you might make and I'm sure I've made it, by the way is you say, okay, let's use Kyle Walker at Manchester City just for arguments. So listen, boss, coach, he can't play for the next two or three weeks because you know we need to build him. I'll use a better example Ollie Watkins at Aston Villa, right. So Manchester City might have eight other right backs that they can bring in, you know, to replace, but Ollie Watkins is the guy at.

Darren Burgess:

Aston Villa, get who the coach is and all that sort of stuff, but going to the coach and saying, no, oli can't, he needs a few weeks off. And then I need to bring no, no, no, no. Oli Watkins needs to play for Aston Villa for every single game in order for them to stay in fourth spot or whatever they came this year. Or you know, work your way down through the team. Declan Rice needs to play for Arsenal. You know, work your way down through the team. Declan Rice needs to play for Arsenal. You know whoever else, shaw needs to play for Manchester United.

Jason Weber:

There's no replacement for some of those guys.

Darren Burgess:

Yeah, except that they're going to play. And then do your best to get them in that position that they're going to play, because going to the coach, most often in those scenarios of course, some scenarios you're allowed to, you ought to, but in those scenarios I get to just make you look like you don't understand that the coach needs to win every game.

Jason Weber:

Correct.

Jason Weber:

But I think to your point and we're going to have to wrap up soon because I know you've got to fly but understanding the bandwidth these guys operate in, because when you work in different levels so I saw this at A-League they're bringing a guy from Europe or something that hasn't played for a long time and you go dude, like you are overweight, you are fat, and you're telling me what you've done and I'm like there's no evidence that you can.

Jason Weber:

And when you said and this is a key is what is the chronic load? So we understand, what do we have to achieve to be able to sustain training and playing football? And you get these guys down here and that's when you're going to say, hey, this guy is so far off it, whereas, like you've said, guy coming in out of Euros, yeah, we want to drop his load a little bit, but he's, principally, ready to go In two weeks. You're not going to. You know there's not going to be massive changes in tendons and all the rest of it, but, yeah, understanding that bandwidth in which these guys operate is absolutely critical.

Darren Burgess:

And understanding your coach and the coach's needs and the context of which your club is. Where's your club at? Do they need you in every game? Then, okay, your star players need to play, so let's try and work that as best we can.

Jason Weber:

Which then, sorry, your star players need to play.

Jason Weber:

So let's try and work that as best we can, which then, sorry, I'll cut you off. No, you're finished. I was just going to say that. That just resonates back to what I said before about the AFL. Final stuff is that you can say, yeah, we need to win every game, so we're going to put everybody on the field, but let's not train them so much during the week and expose them so badly that we lose them. Like, let's do a little bit less and just keep them on the field, mate, in order to finish first. First, you must finish. You've got to get them on the park, mate. I know you've got a role and you've got a heavy schedule. So, mate, good coffee, good brew. That wasn't bad at all. We will speak real soon, mate. Uh, very good, uh, chatting today and um, mate, we'll speak soon. Yeah, catch you soon, mate. Thanks.