Chapter 775 The future of football is here!

While the players, led by team manager Mathieu Le Tissier, happily boarded the team's rented luxury yacht and enjoyed the charming scenery of the Tagus River in Lisbon, in the hotel, Bielsa was receiving the visiting Klopp, Tuchel, and Simeone, the head coach of tonight's final opponent.

If this scene was captured by the media, they would definitely be shocked.

Some people may even wonder if Simeone is here to discuss the tactical arrangements for the evening with Bielsa?

Klopp was officially dismissed from Dortmund a few days ago, and a few days later he officially announced that he would take over Inter Milan.

As for Inter Milan and Mazzarri, it ended with Mazzarri's voluntary resignation.

It can be said that Fassone, Blanca and others were very helpful in handling this matter, and everyone was happy.

Bielsa didn't stay specifically to greet these visitors, but because he wanted the players to be more relaxed.

Enjoy a trip to Lisbon. This was decided by Master Huan himself yesterday at noon after the team temporarily adjusted its plan.

Just for this, the team will have to spend a lot of money.

At the same time, in order to avoid putting pressure on the players and allow them to have more fun, the coaching staff including Bielsa and Luis Borini did not participate. The team was led by head coach Mathieu Le Tissier, who has the best relationship with the players, and accompanied by sports psychology consultant Dan Abraham.

I believe that at this moment, they should be having a great time on the yacht!

Several professional European coaches got together and the topic soon turned to football.

Klopp, Tuchel, and even Simeone, all came with the attitude of learning from others, and Bielsa was not shy either. After all, they will all coach Huan Shaoye's team next, so he even took out Southampton's pre-match plan.

As a result, this appearance left the other three dumbfounded.

How to say it?

Too many!

It is as thick as more than a hundred pages of A4 paper, and it records in detail the physical and psychological data of each player, marking the various details that must be paid attention to and valued. Many of the details are so detailed that they are unbelievable.

"Do you make such detailed arrangements before and after every game?" Simeone was a little unbelievable.

He considers himself a coach who pays great attention to details, but compared with Southampton's cumbersome and complicated pre-match arrangements, he feels that his own is child's play.

Just like the assessment of the players' psychology, in addition to the specific time arrangements, Southampton also includes statistics on each player's past personality and psychology, and provides targeted pre-match encouragement plans.

And this kind of solution is not complicated. On the contrary, most of them are very simple, and some are so simple that they only require a few sentences.

But who is Simeone?

By working backwards from these targeted plans, he was able to vaguely guess the players' psychological state and then draw a conclusion that these plans were all made by professionals and were quite targeted.

It is not difficult to understand why Southampton players take to the field with a strong spirit in every game.

Neymar, who moved from the Saints to Barcelona, ​​has complained more than once that Barcelona did not give him enough help.

But what about Barcelona?

I also felt aggrieved and thought I had done enough.

But if Barcelona could see this plan, they would find that they have done too little.

Of course, it is hard to say whether they will learn from Southampton.

After all, how many professionals and how much investment are needed to make such a detailed plan?

After hearing Simeone's question, Bielsa shook his head lightly: "Normally not so much, because this game is the Champions League final, so it is probably a quarter more than usual."

Simeone, Klopp and Tuchel looked at each other and noticed the bitter smile in each other's eyes.

In other words, even for ordinary games, Southampton has done sufficient preparation.

"Actually, you only see papers because we usually manage things with computers. So, on the computer, there are only a few of these things!" Bielsa even made a rare joke.

The other three couldn't help but smile, but it was indeed true.

The Saints have already implemented digital management of computer office work throughout the club. This has been vigorously promoted by Yang Huan in the past four years since he acquired the Saints.

Not only in the Saints, but also in Atletico Madrid, Monaco and Inter Milan, Yang Huan is also making strong efforts.

It can even be predicted that Yang Huan will soon promote this approach in other teams he has acquired.

In the past, they, like many media and fans, thought that Southampton's advancement was more reflected in hardware and data management and analysis. But now, holding this heavy document in their hands, they realized their mistake.

As professional head coaches, they know clearly that there are too many shocking things here.

For example, the simplest thing is eating.

The last meal before the game is crucial, and all professional teams attach great importance to it. However, most professional teams do not pay much attention to nutritional distribution. Some teams equipped with nutrition experts will be relatively more professional.

They will arrange for the players to consume carbohydrates the day before the game, and try to keep the carbohydrate intake ratio in a reasonable proportion to the players' weight.

Just like Arsenal, the biggest change Wenger brought to the Gunners was healthy eating, and that's what they did.

It is said that the Gunners' players strictly follow a diet of four grams of carbohydrates per kilogram.

But what about Southampton?

It is not just a one-size-fits-all ratio, but rather a golden ratio that is most reasonable and best suited to the players is derived based on the physical characteristics of each player and the data accumulated from long-term tracking in the past.

Not only that, they also pay great attention to time management.

For example, it takes about two to three hours for carbohydrates to be digested in the stomach, so they will arrange for the players to eat three to four hours before the game.

The advantage of doing this is that it can ensure that the players' bodies absorb as much energy as possible in the last meal before the game, but when the game starts, they are in a fasting state that is suitable for the players' performance.

But is that all?

No!

Southampton will also develop targeted plans based on each player's physical fitness, technical characteristics, position, game input and consumption, and require players to strictly implement them.

But this is only before the game. During and after the game, Southampton also has a very detailed diet plan, and all of this relies on the strong team of nutritionists behind the Saints.

If diet and psychology are aspects that many teams pay attention to, and Southampton attaches importance to them, then it is understandable, but even sleep, which almost all teams do not pay attention to, the Saints have invested a lot of effort and energy in it.

In the plan in Klopp's hand, on the pages about players' sleep, you can see the signature of a man named Nick Littlehalles.

People who don’t know probably won’t notice who he is, but Klopp knows.

Little Harles, chairman of the British Sleep Association, was a former professional golf player. Later, he became an executive of a world-renowned bedding company. He has knowledge in both sports science and sleep science.

He has coached countless British athletes, many of whom have won medals at the Olympics, and in football, he is best known for teaching Manchester United's Ryan Giggs how to sleep.

Good sleep and yoga before bed are seen as the reasons for Giggs' longevity in his career.

And all of this comes from the guidance of Littlehalles.

Previously, British media reported that Southampton hired a sleep coach to help players fall asleep, and even renovated the players' rooms at Staplewood for this purpose.

All of this was written by Littlehalles.

Because he wants to create the best, most comfortable and most scientific sleeping environment for the players.

The most interesting thing is that he is against putting water next to the bed because he believes that this will give players a psychological hint to get up and drink water, which will affect their sleep.

But in this plan, he even arranged the players' sleep in great detail.

For example, when to eat dinner, whether you can have snacks and when to eat, and what routine activities before bedtime can help you fall asleep.

What's weird is that he requires every player to go to the bathroom every fifteen minutes one hour before going to bed, regardless of whether they feel like urinating or not, because this ensures that they don't hold their urine.

In addition, his sleep theory is that each person's sleep cycle is divided into three stages: light sleep, deep sleep and rapid eye movement. Each cycle is exactly ninety minutes, so when planning sleep, it is best to use ninety minutes as units.

That is to say, you either sleep for five cycles, which is exactly seven and a half hours.

What happens if you don’t plan according to the cycle?

According to him, if you sleep eight or eight and a half hours, theoretically you have slept half an hour to an hour more, but in reality, you will feel more tired and sleepy.

And he discourages catching up on sleep because it doesn't help at all.

In the Southampton team, Littlehalles' role is to help every player sleep well every night.

He even guides players on how to use their free time to rest and helps some players who have difficulty falling asleep find a sleeping method that suits them.

On the surface, sleeping is a very simple thing that everyone can do, but getting a good night's sleep, especially for a player who is about to face a major event, is a profound science.

Otherwise, Ferguson would not have blasted Roma's hotel after losing the Champions League final.

Simeone, Klopp and Tuchel looked through Southampton's plan and they really had an incredible feeling.

They all knew that Southampton made this plan public to them because they were about to coach Yang Huan's team, but even so, they could not copy it exactly.

Because that's not realistic!

Yang Huan spent a total of four years working hard to build up this system at Southampton from scratch, bit by bit. It has permeated into every aspect of the club and into the hearts of every player.

Therefore, such a plan that seems extremely complicated and even like a maze to outsiders can be carried out in an orderly manner in the hands of Southampton. They can even arrange the time very compactly and orderly.

Because they are already used to it!

Moreover, it is entirely conceivable that for such a plan, how much money Southampton has to invest in this area every year to maintain the operation of the entire system and to maintain the team's research and improvements in related areas?

It would cost at least several million or even tens of millions of pounds!

This amount of money is enough to bring in a talented player!

But Southampton used it to do this?

Looking at the entire European football world, perhaps the only one who can be so luxurious is the Saints!

But Bielsa obviously doesn't think so.

He pointed at the document in the hands of the three people with a slight smile and said something in a very profound tone.

“The future of football is here!”

The three people on the opposite side were stunned!