One of Inter Miami II’s coaches, Darren Powell, spoke to GIS about a typical week during the season of a coach at the club, formed in 2019.
Coaching Inter Miami II, England-native Darren takes care of the development squad at the Fort Lauderdale club.
He spoke about what an average week coaching in the USA can bring, talking about the importance of recovery after a match.
Darren said: “Game day will be Saturday, and we’ll take Sunday or Monday off. One of those days will be a recovery day.
“It’s a day where we can really work on some technical stuff – low stress, low thought process, but lots of touches. It’s less demanding, but there’s lots of contact time with the ball.”
Once the recovery period if complete, plans are put in place to prepare the squad for the next weekend’s match.
“On Tuesday, we typically work in small spaces, but with concepts we’re going to be using in the game on the weekend.
“On Wednesday, we go into big spaces, so we go into 11v11.
“Thursday becomes what we call a ‘speed day.’ More short bursts of the ideas of what we are doing. Sometimes we’ll do pressing, sometimes we’ll do build out.
“On Friday, we’ll do a bit of pressing, and it’ll be very rondo and maybe a little free game at the end for them. Sometimes we make it a bit more fun in terms of target games.”
Darren then spoke about how travelling to away games in the United States can be a lot different than in England.
“We train for 45 minutes, shower, eat, bus to the airport with all the equipment, get on a plane.
“Right now, it’s about a 25 per cent on time rate for all the airports in the States. We know we might be late, and we have to deal with that.
“It’s something you really have to think about, and as a coach you have to not only worry about the on-field stuff, but you’re thinking what’s the best preparation for the players and how can we be best prepared going into the game.”
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