The variance of daily training load in Arabic professional

youth soccer players after a change of head coach during

the in-season.

Guido SeerdenAl Shabab Al Arabi Football Club, Dubai, UAE.

Introduction

In soccer, coaches and managers are the main responsible for planning and executing training

sessions.

The main power within a coaching staff hierarchy belongs to the managers or coaches,

while the medical team is ranked poorly in professional soccer.

(Ekstrand 2013)

Introduction

It is important to look at external factors like training load and continuity of coaching staff when looking at players’ wellbeing and injury prevention.

(Ekstrand, 2013)

A common tool used in team sports to analyse daily training load is Session-Rate of Perceived Exertion

(RPE).(Coutts et al. 2008)

Widely used in youth soccer.(Brink et al. 2010, Wrigley et al., 2012)

Introduction

The aim of this study was to look at the variance of daily training load in Arabic professional youth soccer players after a change of head

coach during the in-season.

Hypothesis was that there would be a change in daily training load with a new head coach (B).

Method

Ten U19 youth soccer players playing in a professional youth academy in the UAE were

selected.

A minimum of two players were chosen from each of the three main out- field playing

positions.

No goalkeepers.

Method

Session-Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) was used as an indicator of daily training load (TL) in Arbitrary Units (AU):

RPE (0-10 Borg scale Arabic) *

Session duration

Data was collected for five typical training weeks with coach A and with coach B during the in-season and consisted of an

average number of four training sessions, including one game.

Method

Data analysis

Training days were categorized according to different training approaches based on days

before or after the game: • Loading (Match Day -5, -4 and -3) • Tapering (Match Day -2 and -1)

• Match Day • Recovery (Match Day +1 and +2).

Method

Training days were categorized according to different training approaches based on days

before or after the game: • Loading (Match Day -5, -4 and -3) • Tapering (Match Day -2 and -1)

• Match Day • Recovery (Match Day +1 and +2).

Data analysis

Recovery Loading Tapering Game0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

Change of head coach

Coach ACoach B

Training approach

Trai

ning

load

(in

AU)

Figure 1. The variance of daily training load after a change of head coach during the in-season (p > 0.05).

Discussion

Statistical analysis revealed that the main effect of the change of head coach showed no significant difference in TL (p > 0.05), while the main effect of training approach

showed to be significantly different in TL (p < 0.05).

Same support staff

Validation Arabic Borg Scale

Discussion

Results showed that there was no significant interaction effect between training approach

and the head coach (A or B).

In summary, there is no variance of daily training load in Arabic professional youth soccer players

after a change of head coach during the in-season.

Thank you

Any questions?

Email: mail@guidoseerden.com