Interesting question :) preseason

When you play teams that you dominate, your team uses less any and thier condition stays at a good level. Now ive started my preseason with a 3-1 win over barcelona, and my players conditions went down pretty sharpish and I used about 12 subs. I just played Shadong in the chinese league on a tour, and winning 5-0, yet ALL my players have conditions of at least 91 at half time as we have just destroyed them and totally dominated.

My question is this:

In terms of preseason training, would 90 minutes against Shadong still give as much training and match fitness as playing 90 minutes against Barcelona. Therefore should my preseason be against smaller teams so that they get match fit but dont end up close to injury with bad condition? Or against bigger teams as it would seem they have to work harder to get the win hence thier condition going down?

Any thoughts?

Did you keep your tactics the same for both matches? It could that Barca and Shadong play different styles, meaning your players are more likely to have to chase players against Barca more that they do against weaker oppo, hence the sharper drop in fitness. Another factor could be that Barca being an earlier match, the extra few days until the next match could improve their fitness.

Thats true, but lets say you are right and that it was the tactics and style of the opposing team, then surely that means its better to play smaller teams and not risk your players, than to play bigger teams and thier conditions get dangerously low? What im getting at is whether both games had the same impact on match fitness or not. Would 5 games against reserve teams give you the same match fitness as 5 games against top league sides?

I'm currently on my Arsenal save. When it comes to pre-season I usually first go and play 2-3 lower leagues sides, even amature teams some times. Mixing about youth players and first teamers. They rarely go below 85% in fitness, and I usually only play them 45min. But I feel this makes them cope with pre-season pretty well and injuries are kept to a minimum. After a few easy games I start to play bigger sides around Europe and this is when my first team really starts to get games and a proper run-out (60+ min). Having 2-3 easy games seem to make the players cope well in coming higher tempo and harder games.

I do this too when I play with lower leagues sides. I'll set up games against amature teams outside the active leagues and so on. And gradually play against teams of our own calibre.

In my own experience I think that is the best thing to do. Start of againt weak teams, building up fitness and then play bigger sides in order to get proper match practice and sharpness for the coming season. Maybe I'm just imagining it, but I feel it gives the team the best balance really.

Sounds like a good plan, I suppose it also means you can play more games aswell as they dont have to recover so much from the early games. I'll bare that in mind, i suppose each type of match (big teams or small) have thier benefits

Absolutely. I usually play around 6 pre-season games in recent seasons and often within 3-4 days between games. Never had any issues with players getting tired or injured anymore really. I used to play 4 games against better teams and that certainly was a bad thing as my players got quite tired after each game, even if they only played 45min. I even had a player or two "very tired" close to the start of the season, but I think that was mainly players that had played in international games over the summer...so, go easy on them during pre-season!

I used to think playing only against good teams ment the players would be well ready for the coming season. But certainly playing against smaller teams has it's advantage I think.