1 TACTICAL PERIODIZATION

RAÚL OLIVEIRA

© 2014 TACTICAL
PERIODIZATION
THE SECRETS OF SOCCER MOST EFFECTIVE TRAINING METHODOLOGY

TACTICAL PERIODIZATION - THE SECRETS OF SOCCER MOST EFFECTIVE TRAINING METHODOLOGY

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TACTICAL PERIODIZATION EXPLAINED IN SIMPLE TERMS SO THAT ALL COACHES MAY HAVE ACCESS TO THE

TRAINING METHOD USED BY COACHES LIKE JOSÉ MOURINHO, ANDRÉ VILLAS-BOAS, CARLOS CARVALHAL, LEONARDO

JARDIM, ETC... IN THIS FIRST BOOK YOU WILL GET THEORICAL INFORMATION THAT WILL GIVE YOU A STARTING POINT TO

APPLY TACTICAL PERIODIZATION IN YOUR OWN TEAM. HOPE YOU ENJOY THE READING.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

RAÚL DANIEL CERQUEIRA OLIVEIRA, SOCCER COACH BORN IN PORTUGAL, IS

CURRENTLY COACHING AT AL MESAIMEER SPORTS CLUB FROM DOHA IN
QATAR (2014/15).

PREVIOUSLY WORKED AT AL NASR SPORTS CLUB (DUBAI - UNITED ARAB

EMIRATES) WHERE HE WORKED WITH SVEN-GORAN ERIKSSON, AMONG OTHERS.

ALSO IN HIS PAST HE COLLABORATED WITH CLUBS SUCH AS FUTEBOL CLUBE

DO PORTO (PORTUGAL), DEFENSOR SPORTING CLUB AND CLUB NACIONAL
DE FOOTBALL (URUGUAY).

WEBSITE: WWW.RAUL-OLIVEIRA.WEBNODE.PT

TACTICAL PERIODIZATION - THE SECRETS OF SOCCER MOST EFFECTIVE TRAINING METHODOLOGY

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Index
1 - Introduction ............................................................................................................................................... 5

2 - Important Organization Phases on Soccer Training Process .................................................................. 10

2.1 - Programming in Soccer ............................................................................................................... 13

2.2 - Periodization in Soccer ............................................................................................................... 14

2.3 - Tactical-Strategic Planning in Soccer......................................................................................... 19

3 - So what do you mean by "Tactical Periodization"? ................................................................................. 23

4 -The Model of Pay ...................................................................................................................................... 29

5- Methodological Principles of Tactical Periodization................................................................................. 33

5.1 - Principle of specificity ................................................................................................................ 34

5.2 - Principle of horizontal “sequential training” in specificity......................................................... 36

5.3 - Principle of "disassembly" the game and hierarchical organization of the principles of play . 38

5.4 - Principle of Complex Progression .............................................................................................. 40

5.5 - Principle of Propensities ............................................................................................................. 41

5.6 - Principle of intensity and focus decision-making ...................................................................... 42

5.7- Principle of Guided Discovery ..................................................................................................... 44

5.8 - Principle of Performance Stabilization ...................................................................................... 46

6- The Model of Training ............................................................................................................................... 49

7 - The Pattern Microcycle ........................................................................................................................... 53

7.1 - Day 1 (Monday): Passive Recovery............................................................................................... 55

7.2 - Day 2 (Tuesday): Active Recovery .............................................................................................. 56

7.3 - Day 3 (Wednesday): Medium fraction of the “play” .................................................................... 58

7.4 - Day 4 (Thursday): Large fraction of the “play”. Complex dynamic of the “play”. ....................... 59

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7.5 - Day 5 (Friday): Small fraction of the “play” ............................................................................... 60

7.6 - Day 6 (Saturday): Predisposition for the game.......................................................................... 62

8 - Usual Mistakes When Applying Tactical Periodization ............................................................................. 67

8.1 - Ambiguous Model of Play............................................................................................................. 68

8.2 - Non detailed planning ................................................................................................................. 69

8.3 - General Feedback....................................................................................................................... 70

8.4 - Incorrect progression in the principles of play ......................................................................... 72

8.5 - Misuse of game situation in the training .................................................................................... 72

8.6 - Excess of interest in the timings of exercitation, volumes and intensities ................................ 73

8.7 - Lost of leadership when not based in technical competence ..................................................... 74

8.8 - Training monotony and low focus levels .................................................................................... 75

8.9 - Training exercises and not principles of play ............................................................................ 76

8.10 - Bad control over the evolution of the training ...........................................................................77

9 - Final Notes .............................................................................................................................................. 78

10 - Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................ 81

Extra - Interview with Vitor Frade the creator and developer of Tactical Periodization Method ................. 85

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1 - Introduction

"I
heard of physical breaks and soon I found myself
thinking that my crusade is going to be really hard. I just
cannot make people realize that this does not exist.
Being in shape is not physical. Being in shape is much more than that. The
physical is the least important in the scope of sports shape. Without organization
and talent in the operation of a model of play, deficiencies are explicit, but they
have little to do with the physical shape. And our commentators / reporters, as
almost always, continue to negatively influence the opinion of those who, in their
homes, need to be guided in their absorption capacity or understanding of the
game. "
José Mourinho (2005)

"F
ootball requires the adoption of a philosophy by those
who have greater responsibility in leading the team. This
philosophy of the play, and therefore, of training
requires a logical chain of the process evolution in which the concept of
specificity will have to be present. There is the need that everything is
connected, forming a very specific reality that in its essence is already very
complex - the model of play "
Guilherme Oliveira (1991)

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Soccer is a sport with many specific characteristics that make it a sport whose
training should be carefully planned and analyzed. The game of football is born and raised in
the nature of the confrontation between two complex systems, two teams, and it is
characterized by the alternation of successive states of order and disorder, stability and
instability, uniformity and variety (Garganta, 2001). As such, there are a number of steps
that a coach should go through to prepare his team for the competition as best as possible
(Oliveira, 2005).

Quinta (2003) stated that "there is little soccer training and, and when it is done, it
is carried out in a haphazard manner, without objectives, programs or schedules in the
short, medium and long term. The teaching / coaching of soccer, in most cases, is done
without a program and / or set methods, not stipulating the achievement of individual and
collective goals, in other words, not looking for players and teams to achieve a given level
or teaching them the best way to do this or that individual or collective tactical-technical
action".

Currently, soccer requires a specialization of different functions and tasks - from

player to coach, from physician to physiotherapist, from the department head to the club
president - by increasingly demanding this actors to improve in their skills and knowledge in
both quantity and quality (Garganta, 2001).

Tracking the need for specialization of soccer agents it has been registered a rising
number of publications and "branches of sports training" aiming at a greater specialization
and specificity in the approach of the soccer game. According to Garganta (2001) mainly
from the eighties onwards, important initiatives were developed with the aim of
systematizing knowledge in soccer, which resulted in the organization of congresses, at
European and global level, and the increase in soccer publications.

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Over the last few seasons a lot has been speculated about the current training
methodologies in the national football leagues, largely because of the appearance of the
"Mourinho phenomenon" that has brought with him methodologies for many people targeted
as innovative and, specially, results of international quality. So the models concerning the
indivisibility of factors in training and the need for a methodology of integrated training
advocated by authors such as Queiroz (1986), Guilherme Oliveira (1991), Garganta (1995) and
Castelo (2000) returned to be the highest level the "soccer discussion".

The processes of planning, programming and periodization of training are now

subject to frequent discussions and publications in the scientific environment and inclusive,
or even mainly, in the media from all kinds of "experts" although, not always, in the correct
way and with the necessary stringent.

This is a term (integrated training) according to Losa et al. (2006) that is almost
worn out from so much use, although almost always poorly, ambiguous and superfluously
addressed. Poorly because the issue is not that you have to include perception, decision,
etc.., But the fact that the stimuli, may be bigger or smaller, but should always be specific to
the game. Ambiguous because one thing is training with the ball and other thing is soccer
training, this are absolutely distinct realities. Finally, superfluous because the practice has
always emerged and will emerge from prior deeply organized theory, and in this case
almost always the proposal was directly practical.

According to Oliveira et al. (2006) as it is usually used the integrated training does
not truly break the logic of "standard practice". The "training with ball" serves only as a
mean of simulating the physical training, and not as an imperative to the building up of the
model of play and the principles of play that the coach wants for the team.

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Guilherme Oliveira (2003) states that before any other task, the coach must
introspect about his soccer ideas. From this self-reflection it should "be born" clear ideas
of how we want "our" team to play, covering from the general to the most particular
aspects.

Soccer is considered as a highly tactical sport (Teodurescu, 1984; Meinel y Scnabell,

1988; Deleplace, 1994). Considering that soccer can provide some regularity within its own
extreme complexity and randomness, the coach is required to modeling a game style
(Fernandes, 2003).

Before the definition of a methodology or any "type" training the coach should have
a clearly defined style of play.

• The model of play is an idea / conjecture of game consisted of

principles, sub-principles, sub-sub-principles... representing the
different stages / phases of the game, which hang together, manifesting
on its own a functional organization, or an identity. This model, as a true
model, it is always assumed as a conjecture and is permanently open to
Guilherme individual and collective additions, so it is in permanent construction, it
Oliveira is never, nor will it be a given object. The final model is always
(2003) unattainable, because it is always under evolving reconstruction.

Mourinho (2001) states that the training process should always be an "exponent of
the principle of specificity. Specificity / model of play and not just a specificity / soccer".

According to Castelo (2000) soccer training can be defined as "an educational

process that aims to develop the technical, tactical, physical and psychological capacities of
players and teams in the specific context of competitive situations through systematic and
planned practice exercises, guided by principles and rules substantiated on scientific
knowledge."

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Correct training methodology should be, according to Mourinho (2002), "geared to

large targets where there is a close relationship between the training model and the model
of play in which the players, to understand the training model have to understand the
playing model."

Still on the subject Losa et al. (2006) argue that when it comes to technical-tactical,
technical-physical training and so on... it comes to joining or add things or parts, that for
such, had to be separated in advance. Therein lies the basic error of the conventional
planning. Garganta et al. (1996) refers equally, that football is a multidimensional
phenomenon and therefore irreducible to any of the dimensions of performance that
contribute to its expression. When referring to the integrated training, Losa et al. (2006)
address the training to the theory of dynamical systems, that is, to say that the whole is
more than the simple sum of the parts because, as mentioned by Garganta (2001), in highly
complex systems operating in random environments, as those which exist in a soccer game,
the artificial separation of the factors that contribute to athletic performance are proved to
be inoperative.

•Understood as the •Understood as the

execution of given positioning of the
technique players

Technical Tactical

Psychological Physical

•Understood as the •Understood as the

behavior of the general fitness
players levels

Graphic 1 - "Old football training divisions"

TACTICAL PERIODIZATION - THE SECRETS OF SOCCER MOST EFFECTIVE TRAINING METHODOLOGY