Aspire in the World Fellows Book - 2022

37 36 Alberto Mendez Villanueva: Head of Fitness - Qatar Football Association In our National Team context, we have all the players playing in Qatar domestic league, so we have access to the players much more than any other national team. For instance, whenever a player gets injured with his club, this player will follow all the processes with the National Team staff from the first day until the player is back to play. Over the years, we have been facing very different competitive scenarios, different countries, different time game schedules, different weather conditions. Of course, all those elements shape the approach we take to prepare players to compete in these circumstances. Above that, our approach is quite tactical. As we have been working together for such a long time, in terms of communicating, in terms of organizing things, it’s always easier. We spend less time discussing, more time doing. The starting point of the periodization is the current status of the players when we start the process. By watching all the games of our players and also having access to all games and training data that the Aspire system is providing us, we can anticipate in which shape they will arrive. Then we assess them, we have an idea of their current status and then we set-up targets for each individual player. Finally, the objective will be to close the gap between the current status and the individual targets. From the physical side, my role is to help the head coach and the staff to get the players ready to play the way we want. I have no specific agenda; my target is only to help. At the end of the day, I am one of the assistants of the coach and my role is to assist him. Of course, there is an element of responsibility in my job which I will say three things about: The first one will be based on the current status; what is the potential low tolerance that our players might have? Secondly will be to identify the battles that you cannot win and the ones you can win. That will support you to identify the right targets that you can reach. Then you can put your energy and emphasis on them. Thirdly will be to maximize training exposure and optimize training load by controlling it in a much precise way. More specifically, regarding the preparation for the FIFA World Cup 2022, we took advantage of our knowledge of the local context, the players, and the format of the competition. We have known the group of players for a long time, and we share already a lot of experiences all together. The first priority is to get the players adapted to play the game with our demands and requirements. The second phase will be getting the players adapted to the opposition. It’s all about optimizing our game model accordingly to the teams we are going to face. So that doesn’t mean to have players as fit as possible but to have players as more adapted as possible to our game model and our opponents during the World Cup.