Italy's training regime over Euro 2016 includes surprisingly heavy work-loads, monitored by a GPS system.
The nature of short international tournaments calls for a different training schedule than that of club championships, not least because players are usually exhausted by the time they join their national teams.
Sessions are usually quite light in an effort to save the energy of footballers for match-day, but a report by La Gazzetta dello Sport today suggests that the Azzurri are taking a different path.
Italy's training regime over Euro 2016 includes surprisingly heavy work-loads, monitored by a GPS system.
The nature of short international tournaments calls for a different training schedule than that of club championships, not least because players are usually exhausted by the time they join their national teams.
Sessions are usually quite light in an effort to save the energy of footballers for match-day, but a report by La Gazzetta dello Sport today suggests that the Azzurri are taking a different path.
The Azzurri's athletic director Paolo Bertelli, one of Antonio Conte's trusted right-hand men from his times at Juventus, is believed to be following a different method.
Instead of focusing on long slow runs, he is having the players work on high-intensity dashes that demand a high level of effort. The purpose is to build them so as to sustain that effort over the duration of Euro 2016.
Bertelli's methods are strongly based on modern technology, and he reportedly monitors the runs of the players by a GPS system to make sure they don't come short of their workloads.
It should be noted that La Gazzetta's report is speculative, as the Azzurri's training sessions are being held behind closed doors.