So Who Is Villas-Boas?

MINDSi SPORTS PERFORMANCE looks at the strengths and weaknesses of new Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas.

Tactics

Andre Villas-Boas tires quickly of the comparisons with Jose Mourinho — he insists he is his own man. This is best reflected in the way he sets out his teams.

Taking his cue from Sir Bobby Robson and Pep Guardiola, Villas-Boas likes attack-minded sides. In the Europa League final he played an aggressive 4-3-3, with Falcao, Hulk and Silvestre Varela as his front three and Joao Moutinho as the playmaker behind.

This team pressed hard and broke at speed and it is this positive, expansive style that appeals to Roman Abramovich, who is smitten by Guardiola’s Barcelona.

Villas-Boas won the league with the a record number of points, and while 73 goals in 30 games tells you about his commitment to attacking football, the fact they only conceded 16 shows that he was not reckless. Chelsea have been built on very solid foundations for nearly a decade — Villas-Boas will have to coax more creative play out of the team.

Man management

You might think, being just 33, he would seek some distance from his players but Villas-Boas, much like Mourinho, forges strong intimate bonds with his charges.

Orlando, his captain at Academica de Coimbra, said: “He is very close in his relationship with the players. He commands complete respect during the working hours at the training ground but outside he is not the boss, but one of the team. If two or three of you are having lunch somewhere and he comes in, he does not keep apart, but comes to join you.”

He is well read in books on sports psychology and used footage of Benfica’s title celebrations to motivate his Porto side last season. He is very emotional, both on the touchline and in the dressing room and channels this into motivating his players.

Preparation

Since he was a teenager, Villa-Boas has learned how to prepare teams. He famously compiled a report for Robson after bumping into him and having the chutzpah to ask why his favourite player did not get more game time.

From his work for Robson he graduated into Mourinho’s opposition scout at Porto and Chelsea and compiled meticulous reports on opponents’ strengths and weaknesses, often going to their training grounds to make assessments of every last detail.

He would provide Mourinho with dossiers and help put together DVDs for the players. He remains au fait with all the latest technological developments in data analysis and used it at Porto but also sets more store in his intuitive responses to situations these days. He has become a perfectionist who trusts his instincts.

Recruitment

This is the area in which Villas-Boas is relatively untested. At Porto he inherited a very strong team from the previous coach, Jesualdo Ferreira, and while he certainly improved the players he found, he did not have to assemble a team.

There is work to be done to reform Chelsea’s ageing squad so he will be tested in this area. Like Mourinho did with Ricardo Carvalho and Paulo Ferreira, Villas-Boas could well return to Porto to bring the likes of Falcao and Moutinho to Stamford Bridge.

Much will depend on the relationship he builds with whoever comes in as chief scout or director of football (Chelsea are still open-minded in this regard).

Before he decided to leave to take the job at Chelsea he recommended a list of players to Porto, four of whom the Portuguese club have already signed. Most impressive is the capture of Juan Manuel Iturbe, the 18-year-old Argentine who has been compared to Lionel Messi.


Gavin Wilson
MINDSi SPORTS PERFORMANCE
www.MindsiOnline.com

Mental Health Issues in Football

PFA tackles sensitive issue of mental health among footballers
The Footballers' Guidebook will be handed to every player in England's top four divisions next season

A copy of 'The Footballers' Guidebook - Life as a professional footballer and how to handle it', will be handed to every player in the top four divisions next season.

It is considered to be one of football's last taboos, an issue that is not understood and is dismissed far too readily in the machismo-filled dressing room, where weaknesses of any sort tend to be ridiculed. Professional players are not supposed to suffer from panic, anxiety, depression or any sort of mental-health problem. They are regarded as titans among men.
Yet the reality is that footballers display the same vulnerabilities as other young people and under the intense spotlight of the modern game it is natural and inevitable that some of them will feel overwhelmed. The suicide in 2009 of the Hannover and Germany goalkeeper Robert Enke, who had been depressed since the death of his two-year-old daughter, Lara, from a rare heart condition, was an extreme example but it raised the issue of mental health in football and the authorities in England have now acted.

At the beginning of next season players in the four divisions will be issued with The Footballers' Guidebook, which looks at the stressful situations that professionals face and suggests ways to handle them.

The concept was devised by the Professional Footballers' Association, in conjunction with the Football Association, and it has been brought to life not only by the author Susannah Strong but by Paul Trevillion, the legendary comic artist behind the Observer's You Are The Ref, whose strips within the 36-page booklet highlight various scenarios, from the depression that an injury lay-off can cause to the incomprehension and anger of retirement. Trevillion's sketches reinforce the overall tone of the work, helping to make a potentially heavy subject-matter accessible.

"Talking about mental-health problems has traditionally been one of sport's great taboos," Clarke Carlisle, the Burnley defender and PFA chairman, says. "When the boxer Frank Bruno was sectioned under the Mental Health Act, the press ran the headline 'Bonkers Bruno locked up' and, given this attitude, it is unsurprisingly very rare for sportsmen and sportswomen to 'come out' about mental ill health voluntarily.
"Many players may not actually recognise what it is or know how to seek help. I think this guidebook is groundbreaking for players and it takes the first steps towards talking about mental health in professional football."

The stigma that the issue has within the game is reflected by how few players have admitted to having a problem. Those who have gone public over depression include Paul Gascoigne, Andy Cole, Neil Lennon and Stan Collymore. Each is quoted in the guidebook. In some cases of mental ill health, release is sought through drink, drugs, sex or gambling, which can further hasten the individual's downfall.

"The attitude is so often 'pull yourself together'," Gordon Taylor, the PFA's chief executive, says. "It's like in the film, The King's Speech, where George VI's father has no understanding of the problems that he's had. When Stan Collymore sought specialist treatment for his depression, Aston Villa wanted to sack him.

"A football dressing room is a bit like being in a barrack room in the services ; it's about not showing mental weakness. Players have to put on a show but it's the ducks on the water; they might look calm on the surface but, underneath, they are paddling furiously.
"We are trying to change things and create an atmosphere of solidarity ... not to make players with these problems the object of ridicule but to appreciate their qualities and to want to hold them together for the sake of the team."

Mental-health problems affect one in six of the adult population at any one time, including professional footballers, and depression alone affects up to 50%, as well as every family at some stage. The guidebook outlines the factors that can lead to mental distress and places them in situations that will be familiar to players. One of the most stressful, for example, is contract-renewal time. Not every professional is on a long-term, multimillion-pound deal.
"For players in the lower leagues one-year contracts are commonplace and this results in annual negotiations, which can be unsettling," says Simone Pound, the PFA's equality executive who has overseen the production of the guidebook. "This is such a big issue and one of the five sections of the book is devoted to it."
The overriding messages are the need to seek help, immediately and without fear, if any set of symptoms sounds familiar and to recognise that mental health is just as important as physical health.
"We hear little about the lows players feel when unfit to play, the worry and anxiety that not being selected may cause them, or the depression and emptiness many of them face on retirement," Gary Lewin, the England physiotherapist, says. "A number of players have needed help but not known it and that's why this guidebook is so welcome."


MINDSi SPORTS PERFORMANCE
www.MindsiOnline.com