John Maisano – Assistant Coach, Sydney FC

The main considerations for planning a year of training would firstly require the understanding of what the club wants to achieve. We want to win titles, we want to win cups and all those sorts of things, so we need to build a squad that is going to be able to compete. So first and foremost, having a look at your squad, your roster, and then understanding what our football model looks like to be able to put some sort of periodisation plan in place.

Nahuel Arrarte – Assistant Coach, Western Sydney Wanderers

In Australia, we've got one of the longest pre-seasons in the world, which normally is about 16 weeks, so it's important to make sure we don't burn the players out too soon.

John Maisano

So, understanding what we have to do in those blocks of work to make sure the players maintain a level of physical, technical and tactical ability, so that they're continuously going up so that they finish the season strong.

Nahuel Arrarte

Our periodised plans are based on metrics such as high speed meters, total volume, that they're doing, accel decels and it's actually broken down daily as well, to see how many, what metrics that need to be met.

Once we sit down and review the sessions and the weeks and so forth, we analyse each individual player. If that player particularly needs a top up, as we call them, they'll do some isolated training in order to improve whatever metrics they need to improve, whether it's their high speed meters, whether it's their accel decels, or just pure volume.

John Maisano

If you want to be a team that always puts pressure on the opposition, then that physical profile is different to a team that wants to always retreat and defend deeper in their own box, and it also varies by position.

So a striker might be somebody who's very powerful, very quick, but then again, you have to have a philosophy that allows them space to be able to use that speed. Because if you're a team that has a lot of possession of the ball and the opposition is just retreating deep and there's no spaces in behind to be able to use that speed, it becomes very difficult.

So then maybe you need other players that have shorter, sharper actions. Fullbacks, for example, need to be able to run all day. And then depending on what attributes you want, do you want defenders or predominantly attackers, again, varies on how quick you want 'them to be over 30, 40 metres or over 10 or 15 metres.

Generally, the outfield players, it's more just around technically and tactically for their specific positions. On a technical level, attacking players might do different type of running than our defenders, for example, they might do more sprinting as opposed to longer distance stuff.

Jarrod Carluccio – A-League player, Western Sydney Wanderers

Everyone has different things they enjoy about training. I quite like the game aspect of it, so when we play small sided games, you have a lot more actions, there's a lot more touches on the ball, there’s a lot quicker pace.

Abbey Lemon – A-League player, Sydney FC

So especially things like mini world cups where the team gets split up into small groups and it gets really competitive, someone wins, someone loses, people are mad, people are happy. It just makes training a lot more fun every week.

Jarrod Carluccio

But I also enjoy the tactical aspect, you know, learning new things that we're going to do week to week and particular for that team that we're coming up against. It delves into a different part of the game that maybe from the outside you don't recognise as much, but us as players have to adjust week in, week out to different opposition and different players.

John Maisano

We do use fitness testing protocols and mostly around Day 1 of pre-season or when we're recruiting. The testing is only there as a baseline to show capacity of the individual athlete. What cardiovascular, what VO2 does that person have, what capacity they have to be able to either improve or, or not improve?

Raymond Younis – Head of Strength and Conditioning, Western Sydney Wanderers

So, when I do the programming, the major focus is to make it specific to the players positions, as well as the players’ deficits. So we're doing a lot of testing at the start of the year and that testing tests their aerobic system, their anaerobic system, we measure their strength, their power, their counter movement jumping, their glute scores, their hip abduction, hip extension, their nordics, a whole range of different testing.

John Maisano

And then really it's more like, did they get any better, have they improved? Things like skin folds, your weights, all these sorts of things. So we want the players to go into every game feeling like they're going to be able to perform to the best of their ability. So it doesn't make any sense to train them so hard the day before that they've used up all their energy, they're not going to recover in time to be able to perform at their best. Because the most important part of the week is the game on the weekends.

So the training needs to be designed so that they are peaking on game day. But they have recovery days, so they have a day off during the week that they need to recover.

We try and structure the trainings, drills, performance, recoveries, including the game, so that they are fresh on the weekend.

Abbey Lemon

After a game or after training the most important thing I do for recovery is making sure I sleep really well, I eat really well, and I rehydrate myself. Those are the three most important things you need to do, and everything else comes after that.

Alex Scardino – Head of Sports Science and Performance, Sydney FC

They're footballers, but also humans as well. The season's long, but it does go quick. So you try to find windows of opportunity to work, but also windows for them to have some time off and feel refreshed, both physically and mentally.

John Maisano

Normally, the recovery starts straight after trainings and straight after games. We have massage therapists, we have our physio who sees them every day. Yeah, we have a podiatrist that comes in, I think maybe once a month.

Abbey Lemon

If I'm feeling really sore in a particular place, I'll see the physio’s or ask for a bit of treatment in that area, either at the next training session or immediately after the training session.

We tend to do contrast therapies in the hot and cold, so spend a few minutes in the cold, then in the hot, and just do that a couple times. And we usually do that to help the body start to recover and get the blood flowing and yeah, speed up that process.

John Maisano

So after their gym work, our staff prepare their protein shakes with their recovery drinks ready for them every morning, whatever vitamins they need, every day. So there's loads of recovery protocols.

Alex Scardino

It's also good to look ahead of what the schedule looks like and try to balance the routine, the day and make sure it's not too monotonous, especially in pre-season when we're making sure that if you can give time off in pre-season, it can be sometimes on the weekends so they can spend time with their families.

And also, in the in-season you can see that players are tired and a bit fatigue. You sometimes it's good to find a balance and let them refresh mentally and physically.

Nahuel Arrarte

I think the most important way to make sure that they don't burn out is having that communication with them and talking to them, because sometimes things that data don't pick up or they might have not reported, are best dealt with, just a simple conversation with a player to see where they're at, how they're feeling, because sometimes it's pretty hard to put certain scores on human feelings.

[End of transcript]

Raymond Younis – Head of Strength and Conditioning, Western Sydney Wanderers

The key role of the strength and conditioning coach is to make sure the players are working at peak performance.

Alex Scardino – Head of Sports Science and Performance, Sydney FC

The most important thing of course is making sure that players are healthy.

Raymond Younis

The nutrition where it needs to be. They're getting enough sleep, but they're training the gym, so we're getting them stronger. My job is to make them fitter, faster, stronger and smarter so they can learn to make their own decisions.

Alex Scardino

In terms of a strength and conditioning coach, my role is to make sure that the players can withstand the demands and the rigors of how we play.

Raymond Younis

So that when they're on the pitch, they're at their best capacity, and then make sure that their recovery is where it needs to be so that we do it all again the following week.

[Screen shows player footage during training, making use of agility poles in drills and modified games that encourage short, sharp changes of direction]

In pre-season our major focus is on developing strengths. And over the course of the year, we moved from strength into a power based activity. To display the ability to change direction really quickly, decelerate really quickly, and when they're required to reach top speed, when the ball goes over the top or when they're chasing a player in defence, that they're able to get to top speed really quickly and that top speed is, is higher than the opposition.

So, my major focus is to work on their running mechanics, to get them stronger, to teach them how to run correctly, and then for them to be able to produce that type of action, over and over again.

Alex Scardino

The games changed. The demands have changed. So guys need to be more powerful in their movements. But in order to be powerful, guys need to be strong. They need to lift heavy, but lift quickly. Also, more of a multi-directional pace of the game, guys need to be able to change direction quickly, fast.

So, within the pre-season, it's usually about 15 weeks. I have a little bit of time with them to, you know, build a bit of a strength capacity with our players. So, I will start with the young boys, more hypertrophy, and then middle to older boys, that'll be more general prep phase, especially when some guys haven't done anything in the off season.

A competitive game may occur in week three. So guys need to be ready for that as well. So, I like to use a general prep phase, where there's more reps and more sets, and then I'd like to transition into a kind of strength capacity phase in the middle of that pre-season. Where the rep range would come down, sets will stay relatively high, and then guys will move into a strength endurance, and then a strength power, and then a speed power program, which goes more into the in-season phase where there's a bit of a regular routine to the week, you know, where your games are. In terms of my gym programming, guys will go through a general prep, strength- capacity, strength- speed, strength- power, and then speed- power block throughout the kind of year.

Raymond Younis

And we move along this continuum of force velocity. Develop force at the start of the year, finish off with some velocity speed work towards the end of the season and moving into the finals. And so, when I do the programming, the major focus is to make it specific to the player's positions as well as the player's deficits.

So, we do a lot of testing at the start of the year. And that testing, tests their aerobic system, their anaerobic system, we measure their strength, their power, their counter movement jumping, their glute scores, their hip abduction, a whole range of different testing.

Alex Scardino

So, there's a team program that both goalkeepers, are on a different one, players through the battery of tests we do pre-season and then during screenings during the week, there's always certain deficits that players have.

Raymond Younis

And then we plot them on a graph and we work out what their weaknesses are based upon their positions, and they have some programming specific for them.

Alex Scardino

So we will put strength extras in their program to identify and to improve those areas. Be isometric exercises, eccentric exercises, and that's periodised throughout the week based on when we're playing.

Jarrod Carluccio – A-League player, Western Sydney Wanderers

We work through different blocks in our gym program and on pitch, in terms of our training loads and what we're doing in the gym.

So that might involve the first block being a power gym block, both in the gym and on the field, being able to build up, strengthen our muscles to then progress into the next part of our training program, which might be, you know, more explosive, higher speed running, more plyometric type training, which is really important because it prevents injury. So, it's so important that we work to a particular training program and we're able to continuously improve day by day and week in, week out.

Raymond Younis

So what we do from Monday to match day, minus one, is to get ready so that on match day they're feeling fresh, they're feeling fit, they're feeling confident, they've had enough sleep, they've been eating the right foods, and as a result of that, the chance of them performing at their absolute peak is a greater chance of that happening.

So that requires a lot of monitoring from Monday to Saturday or to Sunday and match day, minus one. So today was part of that process. We had a couple of hard training sessions earlier on in the week. We've got a very difficult challenging training session tomorrow. So today was a lighter session, to tick off from what the players haven't done, if they have not accumulated enough accelerations or decelerations or a change of direction or high speed or total distance.

So they've got a few top ups today, but for the rest of the team, it was a bit of a down session, a bit of fun, some competitive games. That always encourages players to work a little bit harder when there's a winner and a loser, and someone that comes really last. So that's part of my job as well, is making sure that I can balance off hard with easy sessions and making sure I'm tapping into all the energy systems and all the muscle groups and all the planes of movement at the same time.

Alex Scardino

So if you use a medical performance screening, we look at how guys have recovered from that game, and we look at some deficits that may occur from, if someone's doing a ISO 30 test on their hamstring, one side might be down compared to the other or might be trending in a certain direction for their groins.

Raymond Younis

If a player, particularly midfielders, who are required to do lots of accelerations or decelerations, if over the course of the week or over the course of the game, we may find they have completed too many, we'll get confirmation through their scores.

The screening normally happens on a matchday plus two or matchday plus three when they're freshened up a little bit, and we find by that time their score should have returned to their pre-match levels, if it hasn't, then we need to consider how we're going to manage that person. And if they're dropping off, we might need to deal with, you know, blood testing or screening or MRIs, X-rays, ultrasounds, CT scans, that we also use to help make us make decisions for them.

Alex Scardino

So, we make interventions throughout the day based on those scores and that data that allows us to kind of track certain players, both acute and from a chronic end, throughout the year to see how they're trending between games and how they're tracking after games.

[End of transcript]

Alex Wilkinson – Head of Football Operations, Sydney FC

Nutrition is a really important part of a footballer's life or any professional athletes’. We try to control it as much as we can.

Raymond Younis – Head of Strength and Conditioning, Western Sydney Wanderers

In terms of nutrition, my major focus with those guys at the start of each year is to provide them with the education to make really good decisions. And then along the way, I'll monitor what they're doing just to make sure that they're on track.

Alex Wilkinson

We've got a full-time chef here, so all the players will come in here and eat breakfast together in the morning before training. The chef is usually looking to serve eggs, a muesli, a yogurt, berries.

Alex Scardino – Head of Sports Science and Performance, Sydney FC

In terms of carbohydrate dense diet, protein's important, I like to use that again in the two hour window, especially post training and post match, guys will have a whey protein shake.

Alex Wilkinson

Lunch is usually getting the protein in with a bit of carbs, depending on how hard the training session is, if it's through pasta or rice, but also protein through either steak, chicken, or some fish.

Alex Scardino

And making sure that they have their vegetables, their broccoli, the cauliflower. In terms of, I guess their vitamins, their minerals, and their fatty acids, so the avocados, olive oils, and then after they've trained all their supplements and their proteins available in the sups room.

Alex Wilkinson

And then dinner, there's usually a lot of leftovers here, so a lot of the players will actually take dinner home and have whatever they had for lunch. It's a really important part of preparing the players not only to be at their best to perform each day of training, but more importantly for the games each weekend.

Raymond Younis

So one of the things I do is when we travel, I provide the hotels with a menu of what I like the players to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And in terms of the nutrition in the club, that food is calorie controlled as well.

Alex Scardino

So every morning players will do their wellness question and they weigh themselves, they get changed, they have their breakfast. So that's important part the day allows me to look at like what their current weight is and if they've dropped weight from the previous day.

Raymond Younis

But outside of that, because they're not with us all day every day, I need to make them smart enough so they can make good decisions away from the club. And one of the ways I keep them accountable is I look at their energy. We assess and question their energy scores at the start of each day, we look at their performance on the pitch and the good old skinfold callipers, just make sure that their body fat scores remain where we'd like them to be.

Alex Scardino

But in terms of a supplement program that I like to use with our players post training, post match, straightaway, protein ingestion, vital for that kind of window, that protein synthesis post-training and for help with muscle damage and repair. I like to do a zinc magnesium tablet, which a lot of guys have post-training at night to help them sleep and recover from training, but also help with that protein synthesis, so guys will have that the subsequent day of a match. As well so we train to play on Saturday, for example and they come in for Sunday recovery, everything's in there and all their vitamins in there. I like to use a bit of alanine for certain players, which helps with that kind of lactate buffering that players struggle with or that are kind of been in a high volume or high state of training and match play, feel that they can't replenish as well, so, I like to load certain guys up with that.

And then I like to use a dosage of creatine over a three to four week period and then back off based on the weeks that we have and then the weeks that we are going to get to in terms of a congested period. If we're in, overseas in Asia and it's humid and it's hot and we look at what body weight they've lost and they can replenish it from hydration and water and sports drinks electrolytes, post-training and post-match.

Raymond Younis

But during the game it's also just as important, so we have some energy gels that they use before the game, we have some high carbohydrate rich foods before the game.

Jarrod Carluccio – A-League player, Western Sydney Wanderers

Typically on game day, I'm quite regimented with what I do, I'll try and have the same breakfast, the same lunch and the same pre-match meal.

Abbey Lemon – A-League player, Sydney FC

I'll try sleep in as much as I can and when I wake up, have a good breakfast.

Jarrod Carluccio

That I would normally have just eggs on toast with a little bit of avocado.

Abbey Lemon

Scrambled eggs on toast and avocado. So I'll usually have that and some fruit and then I go for a walk and grab a coffee.

Alex Scardino

So we like to have a three hour window before kickoff, where guys will have a pre-match meal, carbohydrate dense, and protein dense options, whether that be pasta, rice, eggs, chicken, and also some fruit.

Jarrod Carluccio

Lunch for me is my bigger meal on a game day, a bowl of rice, just normal steamed rice with some chicken.

Abbey Lemon

The last meal that I have before a game is usually three to four hours before, and it's just pasta. Normally pesto pasta, there is just all carbs, and that's the best energy source and what your body's going to use first during the game.

Jarrod Carluccio

And then typically pre-match, I don't like to eat something that's too heavy, so I'll normally stick to a couple of pieces of toast or some porridge or whatever's available really and then right before kickoff, if we've got bananas available or a little bit of banana bread, I'll smash that and then out for the game.

Abbey Lemon

And then once I get to the game, I grab a banana and a red bull and I start drinking those, I think the caffeine just wakes me up a little bit.

Raymond Younis

Our hydration strategies, outside of water, so that we know that there's a loss of electrolytes and potassium and sodium, so what we do is provide them with rehydration drinks as well. And that happens before the game, it happens during the game, it happens at halftime, happens in the second half and then we provide them with recovery tools like protein drinks after the game as well.

Alex Scardino

The risk involved, if players aren't fuelled, then they can't withstand the demands of the game, so they make bad decisions, can't move quicker and you just see some injuries that occur from that as well.

[End of transcript]

Raymond Younis – Head of Strength and Conditioning, Western Sydney Wanderers

Yeah, I think sports psychology is really important, performance is just not about getting them physically ready, it's important to understand that the overall health and wellbeing is important as well.

John Maisano – Assistant Coach, Sydney FC

Normally you hear things like, mentally tough, mentally strong, mindset, but, it requires practice.

Raymond Younis

So the life of a footballer is not always smooth sailing, and more often than not, you find that players may not make a squad. As a result, their confidence might be down, and often they'll seek guidance in terms of how they can try and build their confidence back up again.

John Maisano

As coach we're always on hand to just listen to some of the players if they ever need someone to talk to.

Alex Wilkinson – Head of Football Operations, Sydney FC

Well, psychology is critical, not only in games, but also in the preparation for games. Being prepared to be your best on the weekend is all about what happens on the training pitch throughout the week, and that's about repetitive training, getting into good habits, and also preparing themselves when they're not here at training.

Raymond Younis

So a daily wellness is completed every morning before they come to training.

The whole purpose of that is to get a greater understanding of where they're at in terms of their sleep, their energy, in terms of their mood and their body soreness. If they choose to put a body soreness of 10 out of 10, but really they're feeling a seven, but they're fearful they're not going to be allowed to play on the weekend, they'll record a 10.

Data is only as accurate as the person that's completing the information. So even though the information is there, I'm not sure how valid it is all of the time. So often reading a player's mannerisms on and off the pitch, if we find that a player's trending down, we have a conversation with them, if they're trending upwards, that's a great thing.

But what's important is that we get a combination of some subjective work and objective information and be able to combine those together.

John Maisano

Training is stressful every day. The game is stressful all the time. Sometimes it can be good stress, sometimes it can be bad stress. As coaches, we've been in those situations before, and what they need to understand is that sometimes the stresses and the pressures that they may perceive they are having during the game may not be as bad as what they think.

We design drills and moments in the game for them to be challenged and they're going to fail. Failing is not the problem, feeling the stress is not the problem, feeling that anxiety is not the problem, it's the way that they deal with that problem. You learn that it’s just a mistake and it doesn't matter, and I just move on to the next thing.

Nahuel Arrarte – Assistant Coach, Western Sydney Wanderers

With injuries, it can play a lot of mind games. Different players adapt in in different ways. I think anytime that a player's injured, it's very important to make sure that they understand that we've got a great support network through our medical staff, first and foremost from an injury perspective, but also a support network that they can come and talk to.

Alex Wilkinson

I guess during the game there's all sorts of instances from a sports psychologist lens that you need to lean into some techniques and things that can sort of help you get through. Things can go wrong very quickly on the pitch, you can get a knock, you can go a goal down, you can have a bad refereeing decision, and all these types of things that are essentially out of your control that can spiral into you being in the wrong space mentally. The longer they're in the game, the more confident they are to be able to deal with those things, it's the younger ones who haven't been exposed to that professional and football environment for as long, I guess, need a little bit of extra help along the way.

I used to find the best way to sort of handle things, when the ball goes out or there's a little break in play just to sort of stop, breathe.

Aaron Gurd – A-League player, Sydney FC

Yeah, I like also breathing techniques, I feel like that helps me lower my heart rate and just stay focused on what needs to be done.

Alex Wilkinson

Get your breathing under control. Get your mind back.

Abbey Lemon – A-League player, Sydney FC

When I'm on my way to the game or before I leave, I pop my noise cancelling headphones on for a bit and just chill. I don't really play any music.

Aaron Gurd

I love to do some visualisation before a game. That really gets me calmer.

Jarrod Carluccio – A-League player, Western Sydney Wanderers

I normally visualise while I'm listening to the same prayer that I always listen to pre-game. That'd be the time where I'm just sitting, eyes closed.

Abbey Lemon

I might just lay down, close my eyes, and I'll either fall asleep or I'm trying to visualise the game and just prepare a little bit in my head

Aaron Gurd

How I'm going to go into challenges or what am I gonna do on the ball?

Jarrod Carluccio

I really trust that part of it, where I can just sit there, close my eyes and just visualise parts of the game that I want to be comfortable in when they come to fruition throughout the 90 minutes.

Abbey Lemon

The visualisation is really important. It helps me be a little bit more focused.

Aaron Gurd

I know my goal, I'm not overthinking things.

Jarrod Carluccio

I've really worked on my self talk. I believe in it.

Alex Wilkinson

Talking to yourself saying, look, just reset, you know, onto the next one if you've made a mistake. Just little things like that, that sort of give you a chance to just reset everything and get back on that right track mentally.

Jarrod Carluccio

Because I've done it throughout my career and I've seen things that have come to fruition.

Alex Wilkinson

Because, like I said, if you don't, things can spiral pretty quickly.

I've taken penalties in grand finals, scored penalties in grand finals, I’ve missed penalties in grand finals, so I've been in both sides of the coin there.

You're a hundred percent going to be nervous and there's no way you can really stop that. You've got to make the long walk from halfway all the way up to the penalty spot, but as you're walking, I think it's just important to, like I said, breathe, stay calm. Well it's about visualising what you did the day before in the game, pick your spot and then just give it a good crack and hope for the best.

[End of transcript]

Samantha Shearman – Physiotherapist, Sydney FC

Some of the most common injuries seen in football are joint and ligament injuries, followed by muscle and tendon injuries.

Alex Scardino – Head of Sports Science and Performance, Sydney FC

Adductor groin injuries are a very common, kicking, passing, shooting movements in football that are main part of the game.

Jocelyn Franken – Assistant Physiotherapist, Western Sydney Wanderers

Being a contact sport, a lot of change of direction, there's a lot of ankle sprains.

Alex Scardino

And a lot of calf injuries.

Samantha Shearman

Joint and ligament injuries such as ACL tears can occur from poor biomechanics. So, when a player is pressing or tackling another player, they plant their foot looking to change direction. However, they've got poor trunk control and inward collapse of the hip and the knee and the foot is externally rotated. This places excessive stress on the ACL and can risk a rupture.

Jarrod Carluccio – A-League player, Western Sydney Wanderers

So, I've had one major injury in my career, it was a syndesmosis injury in my left ankle. I was just doing a crossing and shooting drill at training, and I went to attack the ball and the goalkeeper and I collided. And, as we collided because we both saw it coming, I sort of changed my body shape mid-flight, which is not what I would normally do, and it changed you know, the mechanism with how I landed and my foot just got caught under me in the turf. I heard the click and, and I felt it go straight away.

Jocelyn Franken

We worked from day one to rehabilitate him. So initially in the acute phases would be subsiding, the swelling and the inflammation that would happen and after that, it's increasing his strength again.

So improving his proprioception and balance and his awareness of himself around that ankle now that it's probably feeling a bit different, for him. And just making sure all the muscles down there, including his like calf and his, tibialis anterior and all the foot muscles are nice and strong again, so he's able to go and play in a chaotic environment where he has to react to things on the field.

Alex Scardino

Football's velocity based, guys need to move quick, so hamstring injuries are very common.

Samantha Shearman

So we had an athlete injure herself when she was sprinting to gain possession of the ball, she went down on the field and ref signalled for myself to come on. Once attending the field, we use the acronym TOTAPS , so that's talk, observe, touch, active movements, passive movements in a skills assessment, so I asked her what happened, where the pain is, and she pointed to the pain location and she said that she felt a pull while sprinting. I assessed her hamstring strength from her left side to her right side, and I noticed there was a weakness. I then placed her hamstring unstretched and she felt a pain. It was deemed that this player had a hamstring strain injury and she was subbed off the field for further medical attention.

Immediate management of the hamstring strain injury was ice for the player just to help with pain. We placed a compression bandage on the hamstring and then reassessed her in the clinic to get her started on some loading exercises for the hamstring.

We place a particular focus on eccentric training, so this is training the muscle as it is lengthening. Hamstring strain injuries often occur from sprinting and in the swing phase of the sprint when the hamstring muscle is working eccentrically. We then want to slowly introduce running, and then once they can run, change of direction and eventually high speed running without any pain.

Jocelyn Franken

Part of allowing Jarrod to return to play is making sure that we tick certain criteria, so that includes his strength, his balance is comparative to the other side, his reactive strength index, which is how quickly he can leave the ground is even to the other side. Then going on pitch with him and just doing jogging and running straight line and just see how he manages that, e should be pain free as well. And then we'll increase the intensity, so increasing change of direction, increasing his speed.

Jarrod Carluccio

I focus on a lot of ankle stability, ankle mobility, coming off a major ankle injury. In the gym or being on the pitch, pre-training or pre-game and prep our body for, you know, the high intense actions, the high speed running that we do, the change of direction and the striking of a ball.

Samantha Shearman

So players with a previous history of an ankle sprain, we can strap their joint to prevent further injury. We can also include injury prevention drills into the warmup. And these drills have good movement control patterns and coordination, so the athletes aren't only preparing their body for the session ahead, but also can get some injury prevention exercises in at the same time too.

Once they're cleared to return to play, you want them following the same warmup procedure that all the other girls are following.

Abbey Lemon – A-League player, Sydney FC

So to avoid injury before every training session and game we'll go through some prehab exercises. So they can just be general and exercises that the whole team have to do. But most players will also have specific exercises for themselves to warm up certain areas or where they've had niggles or injuries in the past or just to prevent ones in the future.

Samantha Shearman

In that warmup, there is, you know, dynamic flexibility for the hamstrings and we know that they're going to warm it up well before the game or before the training session.

Abbey Lemon

So, specifically for me, my left hamstring is a little bit "iffy" at the moment, I've had some tendon issues, so what I tend to do before training and games is to do some isometric exercises just to warm it up a little bit and it just prepares it to do more high speed running, especially since hamstrings are used a lot in your sprinting. Those exercises like hip bridges or on the GHD extensions, just a static hold, really helps me to warm that up and get ready for training or a game.

Raymond Younnis – Head of Strength and Conditioning, Western Sydney Wanderers

Yeah when players get injured, my role is to provide guidance to the physiotherapists.

Samantha Shearman

Our biggest concern is re-injury.

Raymond Younnis

Conditioning testing, max speed testing, change of direction testing. It might mean that any test we've done over the course of the year, I need to provide that information to the physiotherapist, as a baseline of where they were, pre-injury.

Samantha Shearman

We can do this through assessing their left versus their right limb in terms of muscular strength, we can assess their reactive strength too, so how dynamic they are, we can assess them compared to the baseline of the rest of the team to make sure that they're meeting certain benchmarks prior to allowing them to return to train and return to play.

Nahuel Arrarte – Assistant Coach, Western Sydney Wanderers

A lot of these boys are living your dream, but if you haven't played for 12 months, also that eagerness just to come back and get back into it really quickly.

Jarrod Carluccio

You use such acute muscles when you're striking a ball in different parts of the game at different times, so, you just really need to be prepared and able to prevent any little injury that you might face playing football.

Nahuel Arrarte

Making sure that they tick all the boxes from a physical and a rehab perspective to make sure that they're ready to come back, and also mentally that they're ready.

[End of transcript]

Raymond Younis – Head of Strength and Conditioning, Western Sydney Wanderers

Technology plays a very big part in my role. In fact, it makes my life a lot easier, and I've seen over the last three decades how the technology in sport has changed.

Alex Scardino – Head of Sports Science and Performance, Sydney FC

So we use a range of performance and technology based systems at the club. We use GPS monitors, so we use CATAPULT and units to quantify and measure objective data.

Abbey Lemon – A-League player, Sydney FC

Every training session and every game day all players wear a GPS unit, which is a little device that goes into a sports bra on your back.

Raymond Younis

One of my favourite tools is the GPS units that provide me with real time measure of where the players are running accels and decelerations, that allows me to monitor programming and either to step them up or step them down.

So, if I feel like a player is starting to slow down I'll check out the metrics, make reference to this previous data over the course of the season, and compare that to what's happening in the live data. How many metres somebody's run in the day, or in a week, or in a month, and identify if there's any areas that we need to work on. If a player's showing signs of fatigue I might go, wow, they've accumulated a lot of metres. I might suggest a change or a substitution.

Outside of the GPS the other things that we use is some testing tools. We use them for screenings and a major reason why that's important for us is to identify where the players are fresh or still under fatigue.

Alex Scardino

So VALD is a kind of a screening system that we use within the club. So that will look at hamstring, groin and neuromuscular fatigue and we do some jump testing on those players both weekly and especially in pre-season.

Raymond Younis

We also run something like a counter movement jump test. That measures the explosive power, this hip extension component, using the major muscle groups of glutes, hammies, quads and calves.

So, I want to run through a strength program, if I want to see if they're improving, I'll get them on the counter movement jump.

Alex Scardino

So, if you use a medical performance screening, which we do on a minus four from the subsequent game, we look at how guys have recovered from that game and we look at certain deficits that may occur.

So, we make interventions throughout the day based on those scores and that data that allows us to kind of track certain players, both acute and from a chronic end, throughout the year to see how they're trending between games and how they're tracking after games.

Raymond Younis

So, one of the things that we use there is a force deck. And the force deck will measure things like the counter movement jump or a single leg drop jump. They are two tests that we use to measure internal fatigue, and if we find at the course of the weeks that they're improving and then suddenly starting to come down, it's just one of a few measures that we can use to identify whether or not they need to be managed. It's also a great tool when they've come back from injury, if I could work out that, wow, they're ready to be pushed again because they're scoring their pre-injury scores.

Except if the focus is improvement in performance, I'll put it up on a big screen. They can watch their scores. They cheer each other on. And if it's just a measure of internal fatigue, I just have my iPad there and if I identify one or two players, your scores are coming down and there's a significant drop over the course of the last, you know, 24 hours or 48 hours, I'll then suggest to the coach that we may need to manage them, throughout the course of the session. So that management might mean that they come out of 10% or 20% or 30% of the session, and I'll relay that information with the physiotherapist as well.

We use something else called a force frame, and the force frame is a really good measure of groin and glute strength.

Jarrod Carluccio – A-League player, Western Sydney Wanderers

Force frames that we're able to measure how high we're jumping, our force, our contact time on the ground. We're able to measure different muscle groups, how strong they are.

[Screen footage of an athlete using a force frame to measure abduction and adduction force. A graph is shown that measures the force generated as athlete uses machine]

Raymond Younis

So we do hip abduction and adduction, and that's a great way for us to identify if there's internal fatigue in the glutes and in the groins.

Jarrod Carluccio

If our training's been working in the gym, if it's maybe not been working for us, especially coming back from injury, that's a big one.

Raymond Younis

The skin fold calipers are great, because part of my role is to make sure the body fat scores are down. We know that there's a direct relationship between power to weight ratio. We want these players to be powerful and strong.

So one of the ways in which we try and improve that to gain the extra 1% to 2% is to keep their adipose tissue scores down, so the skin folds. We do that every three or four weeks. And if I'm not happy, we start to do it each week until I get you to where you want to be.

So typically that happens in the pre-season, the skin folds, when they've had four or five weeks off. They may have over eaten, under exercised, and they might not come back in the shape that I'm happy with.

And the last thing that I use is a program that allows me to put all the data in and then be able to visualise all the players and where, where they sit.

[Screen shows a sample data table for an athlete, showing all elements that Raymond monitors in order to keep an athlete “on track” for their season, supporting peak performance.]

So I'm able to provide information to players of where I need them to be. If they're pushing national duties or where I'd like them to be to get in front of another player into the squad. It also provides the physios the opportunity for me to give them real life data so they can monitor what they're doing as well.

Samantha Shearman – Physiotherapist, Sydney FC

So, we use a lot of assessment technology such as the force decks and dynamometer. So we can, again, measure an athlete's strength, we can measure their reactive strength, we can measure things like their vertical jump height, their counter movement jump, how much force they're producing.

[Screen shows an athlete performing vertical jumps while an iPad is shown, measuring and recording the athletes’ ability to produce force and jump height.]

We can also use other technologies for a player that perhaps is returning from a knee surgery, we've got neuromuscular activation as well as blood pressure cuffs, which can help with quads activation following a procedure.

Alex Scardino

I think it's very important you have a cohort of players and everyone's built differently. So we look at movement quality, movement efficiency, the biomechanics and the structure of those players.

So, in pre-season we do a lot of a big battery of tests that looks at various deficits within those players, and that allows us to make, you know, specific interventions with those players and put specific programs in place throughout the year to improve those areas.

Raymond Younis

Biomechanics plays a very big role in football. The players are required to cover lots of distance, and if they don't cover that distance efficiently, that leads to an increased risk of injury and early onset of fatigue.

So, one of my major roles is to improve the running mechanics of players. In order for me to do that, we use video analysis and specific technology to analyse player's running technique, what's happening at the hips, what's happening at the knees, what's happening at the ankle, you know, is there dorsiflexion and plantar flexion at the right moments? Is there full hip extension? What's the lean? What's their body lean like? What's happening with their elbows? What's the head position like? Are they bracing correctly?

And, if I can focus on using that technology to improve a players’ performance and they can run half a kilometre faster or one kilometre faster, that's the difference between them winning a tackle or scoring a goal.

Alex Scardino

Yeah, I think in sports science, I think, data's becoming, I think it's used a lot now, I think it's sometimes can get overused.

[Screen shows data from the program VALD, displaying how an athlete’s performance can be monitored and tracked.]

I think it's there to inform decisions, but I think it's always good to look at, have a good set of eyes, look at movement quality, look how guys move and not just rely on data or looking at the iPad to make decisions as well.

John Maisano – Assistant Coach, Sydney FC

A result on your numbers with the GPS measures doesn't necessarily mean that it's a good or bad thing with your performance from our football philosophy.

You go back to the performance and you analyse a video. We can chop up data, without data analysts and video analysts and you go and you look at it and you say, does it match? Because you can sometimes be subjective and just say, oh, this happened because that happened. Or you can be too objective and say, well, the numbers tell you this, so that means 100% that that's why that happened.

But really you would have to use your knowledge, your expert knowledge of one and expert knowledge of the other one and say, well, do they correlate? Sometimes it doesn't even correlate. Sometimes the numbers are so bad, but you've just won the game and sometimes the numbers are so good, but you've lost the game.

[End of transcript]