José Tavares: Currently is the Head Coach in Charlotte FC NP, USA. He also worked also in FC Porto, Boavista FC, FC Paços de Ferreira.

TP: Pre-Season in Tactical Periodisation®, how you operationalize this period that in Tactical Periodization® is called Pre-Competition Period?

José Tavares: First, we need to be aware of our context. Whether a coach is new at the club, if the coach is already there, or if the team is new, we need to consider many factors, including the culture of the country. I’m going to talk about my personal moment here, as I come from a different culture and a different country. I’ve joined a club that is relatively young, and this is the initial phase of building our team.

And the team has completely new players. There are players coming from the academy, players coming from the local environment, players from other countries, and players from the first team as well.

So, this is all new. I’m still learning about the culture, and I know some players from watching videos of their play. I recognize some players from previous matches we played against them, but everything is new. How can we establish a common language here? How can we have the same project for everybody? What can bring us together?

For me, it’s going to be the team culture because the club doesn’t have a real tradition yet, as we are still growing. So, I’m going to try to create something based on our actions on the field. I’m really putting my efforts into creating a tactical culture for my team. Everything is new, so we are together every single day to play, share the ball, and defend our goal. How we are going to do it is about working together and creating the process of coming together.

Imagine, I’m in the third week of training, and we’ve already played four games. They ask, “Why are you having so many games?” But I want them to feel that we are training and adapting to the game model I presented to them. I’m always trying to adapt the game model to the players’ identity, so we want to create a unique identity for the team, the cultural identity I spoke about before. However, I’m still getting to know the players and what adjustments I need to make.

The model I have is really open at the moment, and I need to attend all the training sessions to ensure that we play according to our game model on different days. I need to see them in competition, so we’re trying to have our game model present every single day, fighting and competing, but mainly preparing them to represent themselves in the games. It’s about the teaching and learning process, making sure they come together under the game model idea.

I find that it’s really challenging for most players because they haven’t been taught before how to play with the principles. So, when I (player) have the ball, I try to make decisions on my own that are different regarding the team’s principles, and this has been a real challenge here – ensuring that they decide based on our team’s main principles while sometimes expressing themselves individually. Coming together and extracting the best from the players through the game model.

In these four games, we’ve had some good moments and not-so-great moments as well. But mainly, the process I’m trying to build is becoming stronger. I’m always under my game model principles, and when the players try to understand that based on the exercises we do, they are really trying. It’s a daily effort; every single day, they want to do something, they need to do something, and they need to be focused. My major concern is how we build this together with the players, keeping the game always at the top of my mind, showing me the way I need to follow while developing the tactical culture.

So, for these four games, we have some good moments already. Not so great moments as well, but mainly, the process that I’m trying to build is something to be strong. So I’m always under my game model ideas and principles. Make more principles, not ideas. And when the players try to understand that, based on the exercises I design, they are trying, they are really trying, because it’s always like that. Every single day, they want to do something, they need to do something, they need to be focused over there. And then, how we can do it on the game as well, against an opponent. And so far, it’s been really a great challenge to put everybody on the same page in so many different ways.

So, my main concern is how we build this together with the players. Having in mind that the game model is always on top of my head, so it’s showing me the way that I need to follow, at the same time with the players’ ability to learn and to develop the culture, the tactical culture that I was talking about before.

TP: Training to Compete vs Training by Competing, do you choose your opponents?

José Tavares: The opponents are somewhat related to our environment. We can’t always choose the perfect opponent, so we need to be aware that the distances here can be quite significant. For now, we chose to play against a relatively easy team for the first game because I wanted to build something related to success. We won the first game easily, allowing the players to feel validated in their efforts towards our game model. They felt okay, they felt stronger.

Following that, we played three games against teams of a similar level, the same team, with some players coming from the college level. They were highly competitive, physical, and created many problems. However, during those moments, the team fought together, trying to demonstrate what we’re aiming to achieve. The results were not the primary focus; we won one game, drew one, and lost two. We were okay with the results but the intentions were starting to emerge. Before the games and during the half-times, I made it clear that our focus should not be on the performance but on the intentions that they are trying to achieve. Sometimes the result might not be perfect, but the intentions are becoming evident. They are aligning with the game model and preparing themselves accordingly. I never spoke about the opponent structure or the way of how we are trying to win. It’s always about ourselves and then we are sharing the moments as well, so we are sharing the time between the players. Always in the same structure, always looking for the same principles, always looking for the same thing.

Throughout these three weeks, I find that some players are grasping the game model, some are genuinely learning, some other players, players that are more instinctive they were not really used to be focused every single day and they are struggling.

It’s interesting to observe the learning curve for the players regarding the game model. They have different speeds of learning and ways of adapting to the team environment. Every day, they are on top of something crucial for the game, often more than one aspect. Sometimes I feel that if I don’t emphasize certain principles, they tend to play their own game.

One of the key challenges for me is determining my priorities at this moment. I don’t get bogged down by the minor details; those are given by the players. I focus on major things, the macro principles of my game model. How can we grow, for example, in high pressing zones? It’s not about the opponent; it’s about how my players understand and intentionally execute the pressing, whether as a team or individually; what matters is the development of new habits as a team.

This presents a great challenge for me because we don’t have a club culture, nor do we have a shared culture among players from the same club or academy. Everything is new. The only commonality on the field now is the game model, not even the language – players speak Spanish, English, Portuguese, and other languages.

TP: Are players generally not used to this type of training, where they have to concentrate on almost all of the proposed exercises?

Don’t miss coach José Tavares’ response, in next week’s article.

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KEYWORDS: PRE-SEASON; TACTICAL PERIODIZATION; TRAINING; FOOTBALL; SOCCER; GAME MODEL.