Vlatko Vucetic is a professor at the Faculty of Kinesiology at the University of Zagreb and head of the Sports Diagnostic Center, where hundreds of the country’s elite athletes from 50 different specialties pass. He currently works as a personal trainer for more than twenty professional footballers, including Luka Modric, and is also a teacher at UEFA A, B and Pro Levels at the Croatian national academy of football coaches…
Who is really Vlatko Vucetic?
I have my own basic principles in the preparation of athletes, especially for tennis players and soccer players, who are the bulk of my clients. I was champion in Croatia in athletics, in the specialty of middle distance, and for more than 15 years I personally experienced the process of having to train every day. I can understand how the player feels after a hard and exhausting training. Now I work with more than 20 footballers, some veterans, like Luka (Modric), although I also like to train the younger ones.
How is your method?
It is born from a complex diagnostic investigation. I measure soccer players with more than 40 morphological parameters, that is, muscles, bones, etc. We also talk about daily habits and lifestyles. That is first. We look at body composition, we look at motor skills for explosiveness, flexibility, jumping, sprinting, agility, strength and power, muscular endurance bench…
Perform a thorough examination of the footballer.
The kinesiologist Vlatko Vucetic
Sometimes you can improve the physical ability of the players simply by changing the way they accelerate, how they put their feet on the ground or at what angle they step. By doing that you can be faster or change direction faster. But I also measure oxygen, that’s my doctoral thesis, and I assess ‘energy capacity’. I am the best at this.
What about the mental aspect?
Another important parameter, the character. I do a preliminary test of 16 questions to the footballer about his personality, it is very interesting. And each of them chooses an animal depending on how he feels. Once or twice a week I send the photo of this animal to the footballer so that he wakes up with it before a game, especially if it is important. And I put that animal as the player’s last name… It’s a cognitive issue.
Does each player identify with an animal?
I put this animal on my phone. Every day, when I open it, I see the name, the animal and the character of each of my athletes. It’s really important because each of these players are different. I understand that it is impossible for a coach to treat the 20 players on his team differently, but I think that is really important.
What animal does Modric identify with?
It is a personal matter.
What else works?
Another important parameter is motor intelligence for football, especially for midfielders. How quickly he makes decisions, how quickly he solves problems… Luka is one of the best in the world at that. He sees the game with an open mind and before he has the ball he has a different vision of the field than other players. Modric sees three or four different solutions and his brain spontaneously analyzes the situation of many players around him, and then quickly makes a decision. Sometimes he thinks faster than his teammate and, where he puts the ball, there is no one (laughs).
Do you work any other parameters?
The social character of the soccer player, how he develops in his environment and how he projects himself.
I understand…
The eight aspects I work on, in short, are: health status and lifestyle, morphological parameters, motor skills, motor knowledge, energy capacity, aerobic and anaerobic capacity, cognitive factors and intelligence in decision making and, by Lastly, social and economic status, the family…
Is football today only about athletes?
It is radically different from 20 years. Think of Robert Prosinecki, he was one of the best. But now football is faster, more energetic, more powerful… Nowadays, most players have an individual conditioning coach. Some clubs don’t like that, but I don’t agree. I think it is impossible for a club to have enough coaches so that each player can do an individual program. But it is something really complicated.
It’s the future?
I know because I am a teacher in college and out of a hundred conditioning coaches, maybe only five to 10 are good for footballers. Each sport has its peculiarities.
What role does nutrition play in all of this?
I know a lot about nutrition. I passed a sports nutrition exam and have read many books. But I don’t know enough. I know nothing! (laughs). My knowledge of nutrition is next to nothing when compared to my knowledge of conditional training. And I never talk to my soccer players about nutrition. For nutrition I have looked for the best, Dolores Dravinec. I always say, “ask Dolores, not me.”
What does a footballer have to do with you, then?
We plan day by day. 10 years ago I did it a month at a time, then a week at a time… But in the last ten years I’ve been working every day, because things change quickly. Sometimes it happens with Luka, we change on the fly, or he decides, because we have been working together every day for almost seven years. Maybe Luka is out of training ten days a year at the most. This summer I sent him a program to play tennis because he likes it, or exercises to swim in the sea and things like that. He is a hard worker, he is absolutely a player and a person who lives for football, for his team, he is totally different from the others. He wants to organize the players and for the team to play well. He is happier when the team is playing well, not him. And he concentrates on himself and his body, he works every day, sometimes in the morning. Many of my players work immediately after waking up, in their pajamas, for 15 or 20 minutes. I myself do squats while brushing my teeth. Then push-ups, and so on after I wake up. And most of my players do the same. You can work even when you are sick.
What kind of exercises do they do?
Each preparation has elastic bands. Muscle is elastic! For me, for you, for my father, who is 81 years old… For everyone, elastic bands are the best way to train. It is the best way to avoid injuries. If you look at Modric’s last seven or eight years, he has had almost zero injuries. It’s because of his preparation, because he’s focused on training, focused on prevention, focused on lifestyle…
Can you play until you are 40 years old?
By training in this way and following a nutrition plan, like Cristiano Ronaldo or Ibrahimovic, Luka and other players, you can. They are footballers who really focus on their bodies.