Tony Cascarino's football lesson No 7: How to cope with end-of-season fatigue

As we approach the end of the season, tiredness is bound to be a factor for players from the Barclays Premier League down to Sunday league level. There’s two kinds – mental and physical – and the first can be more exhausting.

It’s surprising what a tired body can achieve if the mind is fresh, but if you’re mentally shattered, your legs won’t take you anywhere. So try and keep positive and relaxed, though it isn’t always easy.

Fans often ask of players: “How can he be tired? He only works two hours a day”. But it’s unfair. Try running 5-7 miles five or six days a week for ten months – you will suffer. It all adds up. Your car will conk out on you eventually when the mileage racks up and you don’t take enough care of it, and the same is true of the human body.

It’s bizarre – we accept that racehorses need to run sparingly and require regular breaks, but not footballers. Too many players aren’t brave enough to say to their manager: “I’ve run out of gas, I need a break”. It’s not the English mentality, though it happens on the continent. But players should have the guts to say it. If they’re out on their feet, a couple of days rest can make a big difference at this time of the season.

I asked for a rest once at Celtic. Managers don’t usually mind. A couple of my old bosses told me: “Don’t worry about telling me if you’re struggling because if you aren’t fit you’ll do the team and yourself no favours”. I think the top managers don’t have to be told when a player’s lost his edge because they’re so good at spotting it right away.

If your league has ended or is about to finish, it’s time to chill out and enjoy the summer. But remember that “recuperating” does not mean “do nothing”. If you’ve got a high level of fitness and play in a decent league, you can’t suddenly cut off all exercise and expect to pick things up in August.

Pre-season training is so intense, it’s the hardest you’ll push your body. So the summer should be about ticking over so it doesn’t come as a shock to the system. Take your foot off the gas when the season’s over, but don’t hit the brakes.

Swimming with the kids, cycling, tennis, golf – enjoyable activities that’ll keep your general fitness at a reasonable level. I found that if I did nothing during the summer I suffered hugely in pre-season. So I did light jogging, some weights – enough to get a sweat on and the heart pounding, but not pushing myself too hard.

It’s a good idea to weigh yourself regularly so you know where your body’s at and you can avoid nasty surprises. Some managers fine their players if they report back too heavy for pre-season training. One pre-season I weighed myself at Paddington on one of those giant old machines you used to get at stations. I was 16st1 – I should have been 14st2.

To my horror I realised that I was exactly the same weight as Frank Bruno, who was about to fight Tim Witherspoon. It’s fine to be a heavyweight boxer, not so good if you’re a heavyweight striker. I thought there was something wrong with the machine so I got my then-wife to check her own weight, and it was what she’d expected.

When you’re overweight you’re more vulnerable to injuries – and at the start of the season I pulled both my hamstrings. All because of my summer of indiscipline. It was a valuable lesson.

Comments

[paul williams]

Tony like your column,but strongly disagree with your comments about tired footballers. I reached county standard at cross country and middle distance running, and up until my early 30s would train between 70-90 miles per week, 7 days a week, and working full time. Running 5-7 miles a day 5 or 6 times a week should present no problem at all to a professional footballer and i would suggest physically they could cope with a lot more if they had too. Your comment about how a reader would feel is unfair as most readers probably havent spent most of their lives training 5-6 days a week, and if they had they would cope fairly well. In my experience of athletics i cant recall any young fit athlete struggling with those relatively modest distances you mention.

[David Hunter]

Race Horses are not like humans, they have been specifically bred for 400 years to run faster than they really should. Their hooves are too small, they bleed from their lungs due to beating themselves in the chest when running, they do not have a sense of self-preservation (they will run till they die if not stopped) and they get whipped. I am a racing fan by the way. A human is an allround animal capable of great exertion pretty much indefinitley. So the comparison is not good.

[Ayaz]

If any manger rests a player because a player is physically/mentally not in peak condition, recovering from a physical injury (or personal trauma etc)or maybe fitness tests reveal there is a problem we would ALL think its sensible to rest the player. eg Ferguson etc

Also when there are eg 3 games in 6/7 days which happens at the START of the season with Champions League teams as well as at the end of the season, players can NOT be expected to play at the very highest level.

When ALL the above things are taken into account SMART managers PLAN AHEAD. I'm thinking of a talented manager who did just that by allowing his players to peak at the right time - the END of the season. He won 2 League titles in 3 years (+ a UEFA Cup). After moving to a Big Club in a new country with an average squad awaiting, the man optimised the ability of the players by optimising physical recovery and fitness.

He was surprisingly maligned by 'old' fashioned 'experts' who had not yet FULLY adopted the suggestions in this article.

He Won a Champions League Title against famous opposition in his debut season, FA Cup and is now potentially on the verge of a 3rd CL Final in 4 years:

The Man? Rafael Benitez of course. When Rafa applies some of these suggestions (naturally in a more scientific manner), LESSER uninformd individuals rationalise this by hinting there is a 'random' aspect to who plays/doesn't play simply because Rafa hasn't sat them down to explain his tactics and all his strategies, so they simplify it and call it 'ROTATION'.

RAFA:- 'ONE DAY ALL MANGERS WILL THINK THIS WAY'

[Craig]

Tony, players shouldn't be tired after running 5-7 miles a day for 10 months. I run at least 5 miles, sometimes 8 or 9 for at least 6 days a week, whilst holding down a full-time job. I don't feel particularly tired as I write this, and I've not had more than a day off work for nearly a year. I would feel significantly less tired if I had 22 hours a day to rest! Any days I do have off, I spend exercising! I don't believe that it's the running that's the punishing part, it's the impact that football has on your whole body. Unfortunately I don't play football very often, but when I do, I find it knackering, as it works out muscles I didn't even know I had, not to mention the fact that you get bruises, strains, even broken bones - things that make every step painful, yet they play on. I think that's what really takes it out of you. Football is about much more than running.

Plus, 14 st Tony? Naughty boy!