01 November 1897
The working day in Vinovo began on Wednesday morning in a familiar yet subtly different way for the club’s broad spectrum of technical and coaching staff.
As ever, tactics and match preparation were the topics of discussion but instead of beginning out on the training field, they found themselves sitting before Bianconeri boss Massimiliano Allegri, whiteboard at the ready.
Organised by head of Training and Sport Science Roberto Sassi and staged in the media room at the Bianconeri’s training base, Allegri’s tactics lecture was the latest in a series of talks dedicated to expanding the knowledge of the club’s staff, sharing the extensive experience of its most senior members and to ensuring that training methods and strategies are uniform from the first team right down to the junior sides.
Presenting his own technical preferences and methods of preparation, the primary message to take away from the Tuscan’s forum was the importance of having a tactically sensitive and intelligent squad, capable of thinking independently and reacting appropriately in any given match situation.
He began: “Before even start thinking about strategy and how to set up your team, it is absolutely crucial that you teach your players to interpret and react to the flow of any given game for themselves.
“Truly great players know exactly what to do when required and can make the complicated look simple; where normal players would pass the ball at 30 km/h, they do it at 100 km/h.”
For Allegri, before even approaching the nuts and bolts of how to establish an effective strategy and formation for a team, a coach must ensure his players are both technically good enough to perform a variety of different roles on the field and be able to make the game as simple as possible.
“It’s vital that you encourage your players to think for themselves. By its very nature, football is a very simple game if approached with the requisite level of logic and decision-making.”
With that in mind, the 48-year-old’s personal ambitions for the remainder of the season were equally straightforward: to ensure that each and every one of the players in his squad develops in every aspect of their play.
“My passion lies in coaching and it’s up to me to deliver results for Juventus,” he concluded. “I will look back on my year’s work with pride if I have been able to improve each and every one of my squad’s technical and tactical knowledge.”
