Training is most probably an attempt to adapt the athlete to all requirements of the competition situation. Nevertheless, it is necessary to assess beforehand what these requirements are, as well as to determine the abilities of the athlete to be trained. The aim of our presentation is to try and apply these principles to soccer game: (1) by trying to assess the requirements and more precisely those of a game situation; (2) by revealing the capacities of the players depending on their position in the game; (3) by subsequently suggesting the most accurate evaluation means and the direction to be given to the training program which will be the most adapted to the physical and physiological preparation of the soccer player. In a first part, we wish to expose and analyze the soccer game requirements in high level practice. To do so, we use four complementary approaches. It appeared necessary to obtain beforehand the experts' point of view, whose knowledge in the field enabled us to give a better direction to our study, to confront their experience with the experimental data, as well as to open and mark out new perspectives on the current research. To respond to this primary concern, we conducted two types of inquiries. One, in the frame of "open interviews" with seven international trainers/selectors, aimed at knowing their evaluation of nowadays soccer play and what it is likely to become in the forthcoming years. Aside from the recurrent answers about the importance of technique, the athletic trend of the game appears to be a major factor as well! The other inquiry was conducted through feedback forms with evaluation grades on a scale from 0 to 20, which were given to professional team trainers and regional technical advisors (CTR). The processing of these data enabled us to create a profile of the technical, cognitive, mental, physical and physiological qualities of a high level player, as of today and possibly in the future; and that, for each position in the game, according to the consideration of the experts in the field. After this first step, we chose to assess both the external and internal charges of a game depending on the different positions in the game. Several measurements were taken in experimental conditions and in the field in order to define the individual relations between: heart rate (FC) / VO2 / Running speed / Lactate concentration. We equipped the players with heart rate monitors and recorded their HR during eight games. On the basis of our results and those already published, we attempted to draw a profile of the internal physiological load of the game itself. The evaluation of the external load was limited to enlisting and analyzing the players' actions in their respective positions after videotaping them during the course of the French Championships First Division 32 games and of one European Cup game. The main results show that, regardless of team positions or displacement modalities, the distance covered during the games remains relatively constant (a total distance of 8 to 10 km), the amount of intense actions increased a lot in the past twelve years, from 108 ± 9 to 119 ± 8 per player and per game which corresponds to one intense action every 43s. In regard to the data collected in published materials, we can infer that this succession of very short intense actions/recoveries in turn requires a considerable turnover of the ATP-PCr cycle characterizing the game highest energy cost. The ability to repeat numerous 3-4s long intense actions every 20, 30, 40, or 50s is more and more present in today's soccer play and probably in the years to come. As recent studies have shown that the velocity at which PCr is re-synthesized between two or more actions strongly depends upon the solicited muscles' oxidative power (endurance and maximal aerobic strength), everything seems to conclude in favor of the necessity for a strong development of the aerobic capacity, before developing speed and muscular strength, two of the major physical abilities required by modern soccer practice. Moreover, as, on the one hand the mean intensity of a game varies between 80 and 85 % of the VO2max in order not to impose too strong a demand on the lactic anaerobic capacity (therefore implying an important aerobic glycogenolysis), and, on the other hand, the blood concentration in NH3, hypoxanthine and uric acid significantly increases all along a game, everything indicates a strong, and mainly oxidative, metabolic demand. In this first frame of study, high level game observation and analysis conducted for more than twelve years enable to define soccer on a global level as : "an activity with very short and very intense technical/tactic actions which are randomly distributed depending on team positions, partners, opponents, and that during twice 45 minutes". The fundamental notion of the ability to repeat intense and short actions stands out more and more nowadays, mostly requiring qualities such as speed, strength, muscular endurance, quick recovery and, on the entire game duration, aerobic capacity. This evolution seems to signify that technical actions have to and will have to happen more and more in shorter time lengths and reduced spaces, as well as, of course, under the strain of one or several more and more athletic and technically skilled opponents. In a second part, we wish to present the main techniques and evaluation tests that we use with professionals. The presentation of these tests, mostly field oriented, will also include their results. This particularly shows a very clear athletic evolution of the players, whose average size increased of about 4cm in twelve years (178 ± 6 cm to 182 ± 5cm) with a fat percentage still around 11%. As far as the physiological and physical qualities are concerned, the quality profiles for speed, muscular strength, suppleness, muscular fibers typology, as well as the lactic anaerobic and aerobic capacities will be analyzed and discussed. Regarding this latter, we notice that the VO2max is relative to the soccer players' level. The average capacity for professional players revolves, in a relatively constant way for the past ten years, around 62 ml.min-1.kg-1 at a maximal aerobic speed (MAS) of 17.7 km.h-1. In a game season, the mean MAS increase is about 1.1 km. h-1 during the first eight weeks; and there is no more evolution afterwards. Therefore, a good evaluation and development of the aerobic capacities appears as an indispensable requirement before any muscle development exercise or physical preparation which would be specifically oriented towards the development of the ATP-PCr cycle turnover which the game particularly make use of.
© Copyright 2002 Expertise in Elite sport. 2nd International Days of Sport Sciences, 12.-15. November 2002, INSEP, Paris (France). Veröffentlicht von INSEP. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.