Football Seminar Enlightens Coaches
[Written by BHS student Iona van Niekerk]
From June 10th to 12th, a seminar was held by former Real Madrid CF football fitness coach Javier Mallo and Real Madrid CF doctor Elena Isla to help coaches in Bermuda with training young athletes.
25 youth football coaches, physical education teachers, physiotherapists, and fitness trainers signed up for the seminar, all with the goal of leaving the seminar with a greater knowledge of football and to help train their young athletes. The seminar was held at the Bermuda High School for Girls and was hosted by FootSail Ltd. The seminar was spread across three days and in total lasted for 15 hours.
After the seminar, we were able to catch up with both Javier and Elena to ask the couple some questions.
Ms. Isla said, “I think that it is important to know it’s a natural thing. For example, it is true that sometimes it can be harder, but from when I studied medicine, it is true that there were more women than men in my degree. Then, when I specialized in sports medicine the situation changed because there were more men than women but I work with all of them well and I think that nowadays we have more important roles, so this is our moment I think.
“My mother is in sports medicine too and my father is a neurosurgeon which is, as I always say, another league, but in my last year of medicine, in my degree, I needed a work experience outside of a hospital, and I knew a friend in Athletico Madrid, in one of the clubs in the first league in Spain, and I met the doctor so I asked him if it was possible to rotate for a month, a month and a half with them, so I started that way.
“I enjoyed it very much and then I started, apart from the specialty, going to congresses and courses, for example the ultra sound, to be able to make the different tests. My first job was with a local federation in Madrid with girls and now in Real Madrid and in the basketball federation.”
“I think that, as I told you, that I lived it at home, because both of my parents are doctors, so it is something that—it was always there. It is true that my parents didn’t tell me that I must be a doctor, and I think it was the opposite, that they wanted me to do whatever I wanted but I feel that as I had lived it and as I knew what to expect in the job from when I was a kid, I liked it so much.
“I think that you must love the sports too because sometimes it is not easy as you have to leave and you have to stay for a long time with the team, and you are the only doctor, so it is a different situation than in a hospital and a clinic when you are with other mates. You have to be with the coaches, the people from the club, and the players, to talk with the press, sometimes the kit men, so you have to stay with different types of jobs. I really like it and I really enjoy because I think that if you love your job, and you are studying for that, I think that you will have success.”
Mr. Mallo said, “I started when I was young and I played football myself until I was 18 and my dream was to be a professional football player. I did all of the work to be a football player and when I was 18 I didn’t know what to study, so I went into Computer Economics and I found last minute that there was a degree which was called Physical Education and Sports Science.
“I decided to study that even though nobody knew in that moment that my parents were reluctant as they wanted me to be a lawyer or to be an economist, and physical education was not really popular at that moment. So when I was 18 I went to university and I studied and I loved it from the first moment. So at that moment I was playing semi-professional football and I finished the degree at 22/23 years old and I started coaching younger kids, and from then, coaching every year.
“One of the good things, is that every thing has been very progressive, so, since when I started coaching, to when I started coaching professional teams, it was more like a 10/12 year time. I was lucky because I started after 5-7 years working with the Ath- letico Madrid Academy and at that moment I was coaching good players who were under 19 and under 21. And then, there were the younger players so, I, let’s say, I grew up in parallel to the players and the first thing in England and in Spain when they had a
“Progressive experience with good under 17s, good under 19s, and good under 2’s so it was not such a big impact. Nevertheless those kind of players, like for example when I went to Real Madrid was Cristiano Ronaldo, so it was big egos there, and it was very, very nice experience.”
“I think that the most challenging thing was that, especially in Spain, in Spain everything is about football, it is sport number 1 and there are, like, 5 newspapers, 6 TV channels only speaking about football, so everything that happens in training and in the games, people speak about it. So, you have to be careful with everything you do, the way you speak, the way you speak to the players, because, at the end of the day everybody knows about it.
“So the thing that changes when you are training academy boys, first thing, the drill is the same, the exercises are the same but the thing is what happens behind so, that’s why you have to be more careful. Don’t get into trouble because you get into trouble very easily.
“In modern football, everyday, the physical condition of the players is more important and especially during the last years, the most important quality is strength. Players from the last 10 years are more and more strong. So you need first of all to be strong, you need also to be very fast because every time the game is faster, and also, you need to be very intelligent inside and outside the game,
“So you need to make good decisions when you are inside the game and also, one of the most important thing that top class player need to have is the mentality to be at his 100% all the year and all the days and that, is very difficult because you cannot relax. So, for example, as we said before, Cristiano Ronaldo, Benzema, all those players who are top of the world, they need to be top of the world but all the year round and in order to be the best all the days, your mentality is very important and that, is one of the most difficult things.
“To young kids, have fun, enjoy the game, and look for long-term objectives. You don’t want to get anything on the first day and enjoy the process, don’t think to much in the future. Enjoy the moment and especially, learn the game, learn how to play football. But, enjoy the mo- ment, don’t look so much to be a professional or to win the World Cup, enjoy the moment and take it easy.”
In conclusion, the seminar was an enlightening experience for both experienced and unexperienced coaches. BHS was very fortunate to host such a wonderful event and we hope that both Elena and Javier will return back to Bermuda next year and continue teaching coaches how they can help their students.”
Practical session at Saltus Academy
Practical session at BHS
