Gianfranco Ermolli in 2012 with Diego Dominguez
Tactical periodization. It sounds like a challenging name, for a philosophical approach to sports performance. So let’s name one of his main followers, so we understand each other better. José Mourinho. But also Eddie Jonesbecause it is well known that the England manager has been interested in the theories of the Portuguese coach since the latter led Chelsea, and that he tried to apply them first to the Japan which led to beating South Africa at the 2015 World Cup, both atEngland.
What is tactical periodization? Simply put, it is a multidisciplinary approach to managing a teamwhich does not divide the areas – for example physical preparation, understanding of the game, psychological factors that can influence the athlete’s performance – but which brings it all together, to fare so that players are in training to face chaotic situations, as similar as possible to those they will find in the game, and that they can thus develop the ability to choose the right thing to do at the right timethus developing an individual and collective tactical reading ability to bring into the game.
Tactical periodization was theorized by the Portuguese Vitor Frade still in the last century and was refined and brought to success precisely by José Mourinho. The theoretical structure is very complex especially in terms of terminology – we speak of principles, sub-principles and sub-principles, of conceptual matrices and training matrices -, but its implementation is undoubtedly revolutionary. At least, it has been in football, where books have been written about this approach. There is much less news about rugby. It is known that Jones is inspired by this approach, but it is not known in practice which and how many teams follow him, what results he gave or gives.
Gianfranco Ermolli he is one of the best trained coaches in Italian rugby. In the past she led the women’s national team (2007-09) and some blue youth selections, he contributed to the birth of the federal study center as well as taking care of training in Calvisano, Varese and other clubs. V.He has been living in France for about ten years, in the Vendée. She teaches physical education, she coaches the university selection of the engineering school of Nantes, the team of the Catholic Institute of higher studies of la Roche sur Yon and the women’s team of Nantes, third division of the French league. He carried out a study entitled “Understanding tactical periodization and putting it into action in the game of rugby” which is an advanced attempt to give a method, a structure to this approach in rugby and which in recent weeks is circulating on several tables that count Italian rugby, including that of the president Marzio Innocenti and of the dtn Daniele Pacinias well as being presented in some clubs (Botticino, Varese, Petrarca) and technicians who are very attentive to these issues such as Sergio Zorzi. “In some cases I had an exchange of ideas, in other cases there was an exchange of information. The important thing is that the information circulates. The idea is that there is continuity in the principles underlying Italian rugby. It is a contribution to create that famous Italian technical school of rugby that was so dear to the masters I loved like Franco Ascantini And Ugo Pierato“.
How did your interest in tactical periodization come about?
“I teach physical education and I am a viscerally passionate rugby coach, especially as regards training methodology and theories. So I follow the major trends that are followed by the various Union. Eddie Jones is certainly one of the benchmarks when it comes to innovation. I found a couple of articles, from the Guardian and the New York Times, which talked about how the Australian technician approached Mourinho’s approach when they were both in London. In the past I have explored issues such as that of teatching games for understanding and tactical gamestools they talked about Villepreux and De la Place. I built this approach and I’m trying to spread it, now I’m translating it into French to try to exchange information and understand if someone applies it systematically or not. At the moment no one has ever denied that tactical periodization can give results in any field it is applied“.
Why is it so revolutionary?
“Because it is a alternative approach to the periodization born in the 1950s in Eastern European schools, and which led an athlete to experience the peak of form at a certain time of the season. In collective sports, the teams must be at the top throughout the season, not just for a period or for a match “.
One of the ideas is to tackle certain aspects of the game in a cyclical manner, proposing them several times in the season, from athletic training to individual and collective technical details. Isn’t there a risk that only professional teams can afford it?
“No, because the difference is in the amount of training hours. For teams that train three times a week obviously no maximum cycles will be made, but the idea of consolidating the information with reminders remains valid. It is a bit like when you have to take an exam at university: those who study for all the previous six months, even a little but consistently, will have better results than those who concentrate everything in the last ten days. The coach obviously takes care of the game plan, obviously a different game will be played at Petrarca than what can be done in Piacenza in Rome, the history of a club and personal and environmental skills are a fundamental factor. But the important thing is that we address the four fantastic themes that are hypothesized for football and which in my opinion are also valid for rugby, and that we must devote ourselves to four moments of the game: attack, defense, transition. defense / attack, the attack / defense transition“.
Ange Capuozzo and his extraordinary counterattack in Wales-Italy come to mind.
“Exactly. A quality player who knows how to do the right thing at the right time and with the right timing. You cannot train all situations, football and rugby are chaotic and it never happens that the same situation arises again, even if there are general structures. Interpretation is what matters. Capuozzo’s gesture was fantastic, but Padovani’s reading was also fundamental: he understood what was happening, he went to support and thus did the decisive thing for the team to score the goal in the middle of the posts. Ioanein the same game, in an action he did not read the action and made an individualistic action as an end in itself, not realizing that he had the support that could go to the goal, ending up being tackled “.
Who uses tactical periodization in rugby today?
“Nobody says it at a high level. However, I believe that the current French method responds to these principles. Galthié he is part of that golden generation of French rugby that is bearing fruit today and that in a slightly snobbish way makes me think that rugby is still the sport that can create the ruling class of a country. First of all they are training the coaches, that is, they are making sure that even those who lead a team are always at their best. And then they train the team at very high intensity, for a short time, with complex tactical situations and always with opposition“.
It comes to mind Eddie Jones calling the Georgian scrum and giving her carte blanche to coach the English pack under the worst conditions.
“This is an example. The goal is to make sure that when players face real games, they are faced with tactical problems that are less difficult to solve than those found in training.. In New Zealand, with Wayne Smith but also later, the training of the All Blacks was so complex that in the game the players had a fundamental time margin to beat the opponents, to make the break. In the end these are the ideas of De la Place, which Villepreux brought to Italy and which in Toulouse have become a training method. And the interesting thing would be this: that tactical periodization entered the clubs ”.
Such as?
“It does not mean that all the teams in a club do the touches in the same way, because in the first team you will have two jumpers, in the youth team one and so on. The adaptation remains in the hands of the coach. But the tactical model, the way to train them must be the same. So you can make sure that in the same club you face the season starting with 4 weeks of athletics, then continuing with the defense, with the attack, and that cyclically you go back to the concepts exposed, deepening them.“.
The impression is that a great deal of intellectual and cognitive effort is needed on the part of the players. Isn’t that leading a team of engineers as you do in this sense helps?
“In fact we are talking about “Intellectual fatigue”. When you train there are things you need to read and interpret before acting, and you need to do it in a very short time. I must admit that training these “little heads” is satisfying, they have a very high capacity for perception of critical points and for autonomous resolution.. You have to see how much you are willing to put your head into it, to make this effort. Sometimes at the field you have people who have worked 10 hours in front of you and you just have to entertain them, give them a beer at the end of training and if you win on Sunday all the better “.