CAPE TOWN - Take it as axiomatic: Footballers hate pre-season.
While supporters are salivating in anticipation of what they can expect from their team in the new season, and the media waxes lyrical in building up what’s to come, the players are going through hell on the training ground.
Pre-season is absolute torture. Players accept it because they all know there’s a reason behind the insanity. Every moment of agony is designed to ensure that each and every player has the fitness, stamina and endurance to last the onerous 10-month football season.
In essence, when the season gets under way, the objective is to perform the very first game with the same efficiency as the last game; and to have the same fitness and intensity from the first minute to the 90th minute of every game. It may not happen that way during the course of the season - players are only human, after all - but that is the basis for the torment and suffering.
It includes lots of lung-bursting running and high intensity interval training. Like the notorious “beep test”: This involves continuous running between two points (about 20m apart) and it is synchronised with a pre-recorded beep. With each interval run, the beep reduces in time, forcing the player to run faster and faster and faster, in order to beat the bleep.
With football being a sport that requires jumping, heading, sprinting, constant movement and focus, all of this is adhered to during the pre-season programme - and at an excruciatingly intense level.
But it is during this tough and tiring period that players not only entrench fitness and endurance, they also build character. Players learn more about themselves, about how much they can withstand, and how much they are prepared to sacrifice for the team.
But, importantly, this short period of anguish results in long-term benefits. The players all know this - and so they get stuck in, prepared to work hard.
Ajax Cape Town captain Travis Graham is keenly aware of how crucial this preparation stage is - but, as a footballer, he fully embraces the trauma of the training.
“I don’t think any sportsperson loves the effort that goes into fitness, but at the end of it all, when all the hard work is done, you will be glad that you did it," Graham says.
“Initially, it is very difficult, but after two weeks, once you get into the rhythm, you start to get used to it and soon you are back on track.”
🇿🇦✌🏾Happy Mandela Day South Africa!
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— Ajax Cape Town (@ajaxcapetown) July 18, 2017
Graham also said it was important that players look after their bodies during the off-season. Often, players go off on holiday, let themselves go and eat all the wrong things. He emphasised that, even when not playing, players should handle things professionally - because it’s usually when they come back to training out of shape that problems arise.
“It’s really important to keep a stable diet,” he said. "It’s always important to be aware that soon the hard work starts, and you don’t want to be out of shape.
“I normally make sure that I start training on my own two or three weeks before returning to pre-season with the team. Also, while stamina and endurance are important during this period, for us as footballers I think playing friendlies are even more important”
Ajax have under-performed over the past two seasons and there is a definite feeling in the camp that they need to play to their potential.
“I expect Ajax to learn from last season,” said Graham. “That is why we want to make sure that we have a good pre-season, with competitive friendlies, to prepare us for the season ahead.”