Pre-Season Training Camps – An inside view of Rubin Kazan in Austria

Russian Football News have teamed up with Kazan based sports website Sport BO (@Sport_BO) to translate a very interesting article from their journalist Vladislav Zimagulov (@vlad_zima), who had the chance to go to Austria and spend time with Rubin Kazan as they undertook their lengthy pre-season training camp in Mühldorf.

At this hugely exciting time for the club, with a new manager – Javi Gracia from Malaga- , new coaches and lots of new players, this kind of insight is hugely interesting, and it gives an idea just how foreign manager can adapt to their new surroundings, as well as how players react to a new manager and training regime.

—-

On Wednesday (6^th July), the Rubin players were given their first rest day of the entire pre-season so far. The whole team, along with the various translators and administrators, first went to play golf in the morning, before spending the afternoon water-skiing on the Danube. The event was closed, but full insight was provided by Rubin’s new Spanish players Samuel Garcia and Sergio Sanchez on their social networks. With their arrival in Kazan, some kind of Spanish gang has begun to form in the squad.

For all club activities, including training, there is a dress code for the team. You cannot come to any event wearing the same colour clothing as the coaches and manager, and you also must stand out from all the coloured equipment the club uses. Normally, the coaches wear red, and the players wear white. This was no different on the day off, but the Spaniards apparently did not seem to know about it, or forgot about it, and decided that on a day off they can wear any clothing they like. In the end, Garcia and Sanchez turned up for breakfast in full black training gear, hair fully done up, and just lacking a cigar, otherwise you might have mistaken them for Spanish Mafia! They say hello to everyone, shake everyone’s hand, even strangers who work in the hotel, and are always smiling.

Sat with them at the table for breakfast are the other Spanish speaking new signings Carlos Zambrano and Moritz Bauer (the Swiss full back speaks 5 languages including Spanish). Yes, these guys stick together, but there is no sepatation or isolation from the rest of the squad. At one of the evening meals, Sanchez suddenly started playing on the piano which is in the dining area of the hotel, surprising all the coaches and players. Samu is seen actively giving advice to the younger players in and out of training. Another time, Sanchez, burst into song during breakfast, singing loudly in Spanish, and is often seen speaking to Rubin’s Russian players without a translator. Sanchez asks a lot when hearing a word in Russian he does not know, and throughout training, gives advice to his new team-mates. Zambrano is not involved in the main training yet, but is integrated into the group. Along with many players, he went on a trip to the city of Linz on the weekend.

In general, Rubin now has a large Hispanic gang, just like in the days of Alejandro Dominguez, Cristian Ansaldi, Pablo Orbaiz and Cesar Navas, and like their predecessors, they already are lifting the mood of the team.

When you watch training under Javi Gracia, it doesn’t take long to see that his approach is very impressive. It is completely different from the regime under previous coaches Rinat Bilyaletdinov or Valery Chaly. There are three key parts to his training process – discipline, speed and efficiency.

Training begins exactly when scheduled, not a second earlier or later. If a player is late, there will be a punishment, but it will start without them. As a result, for 5-10 minutes before training starts, most of the players are out on the pitch waiting to start.

Gracia also actively requires the quality performing of these elements, if someone skives off or if it just doesn’t work for him, the Spaniard will take a break, to explain what went wrong and works until the player gets it right. The most common word is training is “rapido” (Spanish for faster). If someone lingers too long, takes too many touches or leaves the ball open, the manager shouts it repeatedly. So often it has happened in fact, that all the players know what it means already, even those who do not speak Spanish.

Gracia and his assistants go out on to the training pitch a long time before the start of training, to set everything up, discuss the plan for the day and prepare the equipment, to show the players that there is actually preparation for the season, which should result in at least a place in the top five. Important to note is that Gracia is not a coach, and often his coaching staff work more with the players than he does, but of course this does not affect the fact that Gracia is the leader and has full authority. In this team of Spanish coaches that Gracia brought with him is Juan Solya, a fitness coach whose aims are not only to make the players physically stronger, but to also improve the overall quality of some of the weaker players.

Solya is a modern fitness coach. This isn’t just a guy with a stopwatch who makes the players run on the pitch and sweat in the gym, Solya makes it so that training is not seen as work or a laborious task. He introduces exercises with different physical activities, with and without a ball, in an effort to improve co-ordination. There are elements of CrossFit, and every day something new is introduced. In some ways he is similar to Mikel Gomila, a fitness coach who worked with Rubin for 6 months between January and July 2016, but at the same time, Solya appears more rigorous and demanding, and has a great reputation in the coaching staff, and his role in the tactical decisions is not far off from the manager.

Goalkeeper Coach Iñigo Arteaga also works a little differently than his predecessors, and from purely a Spanish approach, like the rest of the coaching staff, he runs very intensive training. A popular method are segments where the goalkeepers need to perform a set of tasks in the quickest possible times. For example, push a heavy ball (7-8kg) from the chest, run rapidly to a goal to make difficult save, turn around and save again as if stopping a rebounded shot.

There are many other similar exercises which are always different. Perhaps this contrast between Russian and Spanish staff is good.. Their training is always hard, gruelling, and causes players to leave the pitch tired, but every day they are almost never the same, though they have a common focus and common elements to them. It almost certainly eliminates the chances of players becoming bored with the training routine, when each day is like Groundhog Day with the same exercises. Also, it should be noted that Iñigo is the most Russian, because he works with Sergei Ryzhikov and the other goalkeepers, all of who are Russian, without the help of a translator.

Gracia left the pitch in the afternoon very happy. The players are extremely tired after the morning workout, but most did exactly what was required. The Spaniard is happy when players squeeze out every inch of effort and give everything to really shine on the pitch. Reserve player Andrei Mironov scored two goals in a training match, and Gracia did not miss the chance to give out praise, patting him on the head and saying “muy bueno” (Spanish for very good). This is clearly a great motivation boost for a youngster who is on his first ever training camp with the senior squad.

But Gracia is not always a nice guy, and is not afraid to deal out harsh comments. On one of the evening workouts, Gracia watches the players in a training game, where they pass the ball around quickly with one chaser. If the ball is intercepted 5 times, then the chaser is changed. With one interception left, the coach grabbed the ball and shouted something to the effect of “your fifth point is already about to happen, work harder!”, though originally it sounded harsher. Javier is able to shout and work hard, though the image he has created is of a modest intellectual.

At Rubin, Gracia has his favourites. It is subjective, but it seems that Gracia has special attention for those who love to work with the ball closely, three who have been identified in this manner are Mijo Caktas, Alisher Dzhalilov and 18 year old Ilzat Akhmetov. They have Gracia’s attention often and it’s evident that this special approach from Gracia works for them. Caktas in one of the sessions generally played not that well. After this session, Gracia came to Caktas, praised the Croatian, gave him advice and guidance in an active way (actually acting out what he wants from him). Mijo, perhaps because of this, noticeably flourished over the whole Austrian training camp.

With Dzhalilov and Akhmetov, the coach has a special relationship, if only because they are the most underrated players under the past coaches, but mainly because they know how to work with the ball better than most of the other Russians. At training yesterday (7^th July), the players were divided into pairs, and of course, Dzhalilov and Akhmetov worked as a duo. The teams played against each other in various training areas with different objectives. Gracia was positioned at the site where are duo should score as many goals as possible in a game inside the box. When it was the turn of Alisher and Ilzat, the coach was inspired.

“Here is a couple of guys I like!”

“You are winning guys, well done!” – Half a minute later, they had confidently beaten their rivals.

Dzhalilov then went to coach to ask some questions about how best to act in a particular situation in a game, asked for help. Gracia in fully trying to develop their game, appreciates players who try to play in a Spanish style and are curious on how to improve, and answered his questions. In the evening, Javier tackles the most problematic area – defending.

Matches in training? No, it’s too easy for Gracia, who believes that the team needs to make better use of their time at the training camp to work on specific elements of their game, and not just play football. Gracia takes all the defenders to the furthest pitch, and begins to work on the game of the defenders, showing them how to work as a unit depending on whether the ball the is out wide or being played through the middle. They also practiced situations which are most dangerous, counter attacks for example. The Spaniard leads the players literally, playing as the attacking opponent in all the practice situations. In these games, we see him pushing Taras Burlak, forcing the play into the penalty area, he makes Nabiullin run backwards, and never ceases to cause trouble even for a second. At press conferences, Gracia puts on a calm and restrained persona, but in training, there is no holding back the emotions, and he is as active as anyone else.

At one point during the activity, Javi interrupts it for another brilliant speech. If you’ve seen the movie Any Given Sunday, where the hero portrayed by Al Pacino gives a final speech in the locker room before the end, then it is easy to imagine how Gracia acts on this Austria training camp.

“I think you are learning new things and adapting but in some ways were are acting too modestly and quietly. In each situation, you need to identify the necessary solution and give your all to achieve it. You have to be mentally driven. This one attack you are defending, is your whole life! We must fight for evert ball in every game because the ball is the most important thing in life. You have to be always alert and never switch off, guys!” – This is only a small excerpt from the powerful speech from Gracia in the middle of training, as if they have just reached the final of the Champions League.

After, the Spaniard once again takes the ball and continues to challenge the defenders, pausing to give complements, advise, cheers, laughs, applause and occasional anger. His full life is now Rubin and he knows his new job is a big challenge. The first task for Gracia is to win the domestic competitions, before achieving success in European competition. But while this is still a long way away for Rubin, Gracia teaches players that if they do not win, you have to make changes to your attitude and your game, and at this stage, before the season starts, learning this is even more important.

---

Piece written by Vladislav Zimagulov: @vlad_zima

Translated by David Sansun: @RFN_David

Photos from Rubin Kazan’s official website.