Want to know what goes on behind the scenes of our training camp? What do our boys actually work on? What do our coaching team think about? Assistant coach Vitor Matos will tell you all about it - with our assistant coach reporting regularly from our training camp in Saalfelden with his diary.
In his first entry, the 36-year-old Portuguese coach, who came from Liverpool to Salzburg along with Pep Lijnders, speaks about what motivates the coaching team, what plan they follow and what the focus will be on from the first day of training:
Dear FC Red Bull Salzburg fans,
Two weeks ago was the start of a new campaign, one that we believe is going to fill all of you with pride and honour! We are going to play with passion, we are going to attack and attack again, we will be resilient, and we want be the ones that no one wants to play against. So be ready, put the seat belt on and enjoy this season!
I have to emphasise just how happy we are to be here. The way all the staff welcomed us all was incredible! Pep, Korny, Pedro and I are new in the club, but we felt right at home from the very first moment! We also couldn't help noticing how the staff received us with a completely open mind, and with a willingness to work hard with us and put everything into providing the players with the best possible environment for them to develop and perform. One of our club's guiding principles says “change bring opportunity,” so we are all excited about the weeks and months ahead.
Our first day of our pre-season training camp is now behind us. Like Pep has said, we are laying out our foundations here when it comes to playing style, values and team spirit. We want a group of players that understands that you become a champion bit by bit every day and in every training session, and that effort and commitment bring us to the next level.
We want to attack as much as possible and we want to be in the opposition half as much as possible, close to the opposition box where we can generate more scoring opportunities. For that we need to a clear plan on how to attack and how to defend. That's the purpose of the pre-season.
Today we wanted to link our training session with the friendly match two days ago. We created some match-like situations in the training session where the players needed to recognise their attacking positions and also to be aware of the offensive interactions they needed to carry out. That's the start of the organised chaos we want to see… we don’t want order, we want organisation to emerge from the interactions of our players whatever the situation demands. All of this linked with high and intensive counter pressing, just like Pep wrote on a flipchart for the team - COUNTER PRESSING is our MAIN WEAPON.
We ended up the morning session with some finishing drills covering a wide range of individual technique (crosses, high balls, outside of the box, tap-ins and overlaps).
Something we also want to do is to create memories, get to know each person out of the football environment and do different activities that some of the people in the club never have the opportunity to do together with the players… so we did rafting. I can tell you, it was unbelievable and really fun!
If you were watching on, you would have seen a team that no matter the role or status were all having fun and sharing a new experience. I would say it's more than team spirit, it's our club culture!
I promise you that I’ll do my best to keep you all updated in the coming days and offer you some more insight into the team.
Des ist Soizburg! That is our way!
Speak soon,
Vitor Matos
