After the 20-21 campaign, the first at the helm of Athletic Club, Marcelino García Toral, has participated in different events and training sessions. After lifting a title with the ‘leones’ as well as qualifying for a new Copa del Rey final in his first five months on the bench at La Catedral, the Asturian coach was one of the guests at the ‘Basque Football’ working days, from the base to the top ‘organised by Kirolene. The entity, “public training centre of the Department of Education of the Basque Government that imparts Sports Education of Special Regime of medium and higher degree”, was attended by the Asturian manager as well as other La Liga managers: José Luis Mendilibar (Eibar), Jagoba Arrasate (Osasuna) and Javier Clemente, now in charge of the Euskadi national team, and Gaizka Garitano as well as Iñaki Tejada, former MGT teammate at Sporting. The conference began on Wednesday 26 May with a presentation by Marcelino: “From training to competition.”
A few days later, in June, MGT was a special guest at the “Elite Soccer Congress.” Before taking part in the event, organised by Fútbol Táctico Group and AS, he acknowledged that Arrigo Sacchi and Rafa Benítez were two of his models. In the talk, he answered many questions related to his idea of football and the evolution he has seen in the game since he started training. “Today’s football is very different from the one in which I played. The work methodologies used daily are very different from the previous ones. Now there is a much more globalised and measured training than at that time. It seemed that the tasks in physical work and football did not exactly complement each other. Now tasks are applied to work on the football concepts to be applied to the team measured through the appropriate volumes and intensities to arrive at the game in the best possible physical condition. When I was a player, no individual or group videos were used, of course, no video of the rival or your team. And now, visualisation is an essential part of every coaching staff’s work. Back in the day, the rival’s analysis was little, also comments or dialogue between the coach and the players, without analysis as deep as now”.
The organisation of the ‘Elite Soccer Congress’ indicated the following regarding the participation of the Asturian: “Marcelino García Toral is football in its purest form. He is a coach, with capital letters. His professional experience and ability to instil the most complex concepts has offered a sublime moment of a football idea that needs an explanation from the elite.”
