The World Cup

Today is the start of the World Cup in Germany. It is by far the world’s biggest sporting event. It elicits passions and nationalistic fervor like no other event. I cannot help but reflect on my experience with the preparation (or lack thereof) of the 1998 world Cup team. I was hired as a consult in January of 1998 to do the conditioning for the team. If I had it to do over again I would not have done it. It is a perfect example of window dressing. They wanted to have a conditioning coach because they did not have one and the other teams did. Basically I did warm-up each day with an occasional “fitness’ Workout. There was no planning, everything was an afterthought. To give you an idea of how much importance was placed on conditioning when in came down to going to France they decided that another equipment manager was more important then taking me. The result was a terrible performance in France. We were one of the poorest teams in tournament in terms of fitness to play, not to mention all other aspects of the game. It was a disappointing experience but one that I have certainly learned from. I have not been involved with the National team since.

Now the US is definitely one of the fittest teams . Bruce Arena recognized the importance of this key component and put an emphasis on it. Pierre Barrieu is the conditioning and he is very good. Most importantly he has been given the time to do his job. I believe that in 2002 in Korea one of the reasons the US team advanced as far as they did was do to their soccer specific fitness.