PROFESSIONAL SOCCER PRESEASON IN SPAIN

SIA Academy hosts professional teams during the summer months to prepare their respective seasons. The first to do so in 2021, UD SIA Benigànim of 3rd RFEF.

The start of the 2021/2022 season is just around the corner for professional and semi-professional soccer teams in Spain. The preseasons have started or are just a few days away and many teams have decided to concentrate in High Performance Centers.

For this reason, Soccer Stages are the best option to prepare for the summer season and SIA Academy is a benchmark in organizing this type of training camps, both for professional clubs and semi-professional entities.

Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, FC Porto, Atlético de Madrid, Bahrain national team, India national team, Catar UE Olot, Lleida Esportiu, Grasshopper Club or TSV 1869 Munich are some of the clubs that have trusted in SIA Academy’s resources.  But what are the preseasons and training camps of these entities like?

The best places to do a preseason

Professional soccer preseasons in Spain

More and more teams are choosing Spain as the setting for their preseasons. Everything is measured in detail in professional clubs and getting the right sports facilities for the preparation of the season is key.

Soccer fields, restaurant, gym, technology, residence and a host of other things are required to complete a professional preseason.

Centers like SIA Academy are prepared to take on these requests. Proof of this are the teams that have already passed through its High Performance Center.

This year 2021 the first to choose SIA Academy as headquarters for their preseason has been UD SIA Benigànim, from the always competitive 3rd RFEF.

This U23 project seeks to establish itself for the third consecutive year in this national category and has once again turned to SIA Academy for its preseason.

The first stages of the preseason for UD SIA Benigànim have been focused mainly on the physical aspect of the player. Returning to the form with which ended the course 2020/2021 is key and for this the first physical tests are paramount to perform.

Pre-season physical tests

Knowing the player’s physical condition at the start of the preseason is very important. After an initial stress test with the cardiologist, the players undergo different exercises where different factors are evaluated. What are they?

• – Ankle mobility is assessed through the ANKLE TEST. A decrease or limitation of the ROM of the dorsiflexion (DF) of the foot increases the instability and movement of the ankle, which can be a conditioning factor with incidence in injuries of the adjacent musculature (Gribble & Hertel, 2003).

• – The Y-BALANCE TEST (YBT) is a valid and reliable measure of dynamic balance (Buttler, 2012) to assess postural control and sensitive to the detection of musculoskeletal disorders, chronic ankle instability, quadriceps strength deficit and patello-femoral pain syndrome (Buttler et al., 2012, Gribble & Hertel, 2003).

• – The Jump Tests. The aim is to assess the combination of muscle strength, neuromuscular control, ability to tolerate loads related to specific sport activities (Reid, 2007).

• – 1st CMJ (Counter movement jump). It consists of performing a jump with counter movement and hands placed on the hip. We performed the evaluation in a bipodal way. We record all the jumps in slow motion and use the mobile app My jump 2 to extract different variables such as jump height, flight time, speed, strength or power.

• – 2º. Single hop test consists of performing a jump starting from a monopodal support and receiving the jump with the same leg that performs the impulse, quantifying the distance reached.

reached.

– 30:15 INTERMITTENT FITNESS TEST. This consists of running back and forth for 30 seconds interspersed with recovery periods of 15 seconds. The initial speed is 8 km/h and is increased by 0.5 km/h in each subsequent 30-second stage. They must run between two lines separated by a distance of 40 meters at a pace determined by an auditory signal. This test has been proposed for the assessment of intermittent endurance in team sports such as soccer (Buchheit, 2010). This test is simultaneously related to aerobic and anaerobic performance, neuromuscular profile and change of direction, and the ability to recover between efforts and to repeat sprints.

Stages for international soccer tournaments

International summer tournaments are also another excellent option to increase the competitive level of the teams that start their preseasons. Spain has two of the best international summer tournaments: the COTIF and TORCAF.

Both international tournaments are held just a few kilometers from the SIA Academy. This leads clubs and national teams to choose the SIA Academy’s High Performance Center as their place of concentration.

For this reason, at the end of August, clubs such as Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and Atlético de Madrid come to SIA Academy to train their youth teams that compete in the TORCAF.

The COTIF stands out above all for being a small World Cup. Countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Mauritania, Russia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Uruguay are regulars in their quest to conquer the COTIF, whether in its men’s or women’s edition.

SIA Academy has hosted a large number of these national teams, which seek in these sports facilities a place of rest and elite training and suitable for all their requirements.

This year COTIF 2021 will host the Uruguay U-17 National Team in our High Performance Centre.