How to fight against mental wear and tear in this crazy season?

Didier Deschamps summoned Kylian Mbappé despite his injury for the Blues games in November.

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• The French team begin a new triptych of international matches against Finland on Wednesday, which will also see them face Portugal and Sweden. 

• Three games that are difficult for the players and the coach to grasp, in a season where rest times are very short.

• Mental wear and tear, in particular, is a real (and new) concern. 

We love our Blues of love, even when it purrs too much on the ground given the amount of talent per square meter, but there, really, we will have to do violence for this France-Finland.

We won't complain too much, it's probably worse in the minds of the players.

Frankly, playing a friendly match against the 55th nation in the world for nothing while you are in the middle of a club marathon, that you have not had any preparation, that winter is coming and the risk of injury is increasing dangerously, we have known more engaging.

So yes, it's an international match, “the honor of wearing this jersey”, all that stuff… but, to roughly summarize what we think: WHO WANTS TO PLAY THIS MATCH?

Apart from Olivier Giroud, of course.

In the last few days, we've heard a lot of coaches sound the alarm bells.

With the coronavirus pandemic and the end of last season shifted, things went severe during the first two months of this new fiscal year.

If we look in detail at the calendar since the beginning of September:

• Eight league days in Spain, seven in France (plus two in August) and England, six in Germany and Italy

• Three days of the Champions League and the Europa League

• Five international matches

We checked, that's a lot.

Twelve games in eight weeks for PSG, for example, which also has a majority of internationals.

This made Thomas Tuchel say on October 30, before the meeting in Nantes: “We are going to kill the players.

We have no phase to recover, not enough time to prepare.

Without preparation, everything is fragile.

It's not an excuse, it's the truth.

In each game, we lose a player at the moment.

And not just us, we can watch Liverpool, Bayern, City… If we continue like this, there will be no more players available.

"

The statistics corroborate this impression.

In the Premier League, the specialist site PremierInjuries counted 78 muscle injuries in the first five weeks of competition, an increase of 42% compared to the previous season.

In La Liga, Doctor Pedro Luis Ripoll, doctor for several players, evaluated this increase at 30% in mid-October.

“Everyone knows the scale of the disaster,” laments Sevilla FC coach Julen Lopetegui.

🗣💬 For Guardiola, the schedule is too demanding: "We ask too much of the players. More than they can do with it. It's not complicated to understand."

pic.twitter.com/sJnnhM58eT

- RMC Sport (@RMCsport) October 26, 2020

No figures in France, but all good MPG players will confirm the trend.

Above all, we no longer count the press releases from the clubs announcing bad news.

Dante, Niane, Bernat or Mason have crossed paths.

More recently, it was Camavinga, Neymar or Mbappé who had to stop.

A few hours before his muscle alert on the lawn of Nantes, Kylian Mbappé had spoken at length on the PSG site of his feelings at the start of this season.

More than physical fatigue, it evoked a very pronounced mental wear.

“The recovery was difficult physically, but especially mentally, because there was no preparation, he explains.

We came back from a final at the end of August, then we left for selection, other players had the Covid… It's a particular year to which we must adapt.

But mentally, it's difficult to recover.

In my mind, and many of us are feeling it, this is not a new season.

It's like it's a continuation of the last season.

For me, we are in the 60th game of the season, and not in the 9th game of the new season.

For me, a new season is when you have a cut in which you have had time to recharge the batteries.

There, we are just in overtime, it's a marathon that continues, so it's not easy.

"

Football "completely behind" on the subject of mental wear and tear

Admittedly, not everyone played a Champions League final in August (or the Champions League itself), but this outing is nonetheless very instructive.

It highlights small alarms that can speak to everyone and to which we must pay attention.

"Burnout, psychological decompression, is a real risk," said physical trainer Nicolas Dyon recently to AFP.

Because, at one point, it's the brain that decides.

"

This theme is rarely discussed in football.

“The players had not measured, until now, the impact of the mental in their performances, poses Delphine Herblin, sports psychologist and who works with RC Lens.

In individual sports, many athletes have incorporated this notion for a long time.

It's part of their lifestyle.

We also talk about it in rugby.

But football lags behind on this subject.

"

Top-level sport hates uncertainty

The link between mental fatigue and the level on the ground is however "no doubt", according to the doctor.

An English study published four years ago in the journal "Medicine & Science in Sport and Exercise" had also supported it.

This season, there are many aggravating factors.

No cuts, reduced rest times to a minimum, and everything related to the coronavirus: the drastic health protocol, playing in empty stadiums, the fear of being tested positive at any time or that a case arrives in the locker room, possible postponement of each match.

“All habits are upset,” observes Delphine Herblin.

There is a great deal of uncertainty, and high performance sport doesn't like it at all.

"

Once we've said that, what do we do?

For our psychologist, this difficult period must be used to progress.

The schedule will not change, the Covid threat is not going to go away.

So it's better to spend your energy finding solutions rather than complaining.

It's interesting, because it's when you no longer know that you have to be smart, she says.

This is the opportunity to think differently, to grow.

These moments of crisis are precious, in fact.

"

Concretely, several avenues can be explored - or deepened for clubs that have already started to look into the issue.

Delphine Herblin:

• “Better measure the load felt by the player at the end of each training session to assess his degree of fatigue.

  There is already GPS data, which allows to see in a factual way the state of the body after the sessions.

  But it would be interesting to have the mental feeling of the player.

  Clubs are doing it, but we can push it further.

  "

• “We will perhaps see the emergence of more sophisticated assessment methods on fatigue, wear and stress.

  Stress can be occasional or chronic, psychological or muscular.

  You have to know how to analyze it in order to better prevent and treat it.

  "

• “If we have less amount of recovery time, let's think about its quality.

  This is what the military do, for example, when they prepare for missions where they know they will have little time to rest.

  We can set up times dedicated to recovery, with tools such as relaxation, micro-naps, meditation, yoga, self-hypnosis.

  When you are on the plane, there are those who will be doing energy intensive activities and those who will tell themselves that every hour counts.

  Techniques exist, but it requires different thinking.

  "

• “Maybe you have to surround yourself with different people.

  Open up your staff, to have new ideas.

  It's time to eat better, hydrate better, sleep better.

  This is where we will see the clubs or the players who will have the will and the intelligence to adapt.

  "

All this is valid for the clubs, but also for the national teams.

Even if time is always ticked in the selection, they weigh their weight in a season.

Especially in this one, by the way.

For the second time in a few weeks, the international break which opens includes three games, just to be sure that the boat is really well loaded.

Not enough to move the president of the FFF Noël Le Graët, who justified this by a question of TV rights, Wednesday, on RTL.

Didier Deschamps, who called Kylian Mbappé despite the reluctance of PSG, knows well that fatigue, physical and mental, is a real subject.

"Organizations are in high demand, and the psychological aspect is an important factor," observed the coach Thursday when announcing his list.

Because it is linked, with a heavy health context.

The situation is anxiety-provoking, it brings about a mental conditioning which is not natural.

We adapt, we live with it.

Is there a good solution?

I do not know.

I manage, as I always have.

"

The convening of a list of 26 players will already allow him to expand his options.

While waiting to innovate in other sectors, perhaps.

“For Kylian, we will see it with peace and serenity, compared to what we see and how the player feels,” he explained.

It is also very important.

A good point, before recalling that even with the best will in the world, reality was not moving.

“We have games to win.

The players are going to come for selection, what are they going to have to do?

And yes, win all three.

Even Finland.

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• Didier Deschamps

• Kylian Mbappé

• French football team

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