Final words

Josip Loncaric

Take it easy

Don't let the sound of your own wheels

Drive you crazy

The Eagles famously first sang these lyrics in 1972, and with the end of lockdown upon us, it seems like the right time to revisit them. Football will come thick and fast in all shapes and forms because, let's face it, we have missed it. We have missed being amongst fellow parents and watching our children have fun. We have missed the cultural cuisines of our plethora of multicultural clubs, the sounds of crowds cheering, and even the winter chill on a cold Tuesday night as we struggle to keep warm.

What tends to happen when we have missed something for so long is that we feel the urge to over exert ourselves, and a common problem with overexertion is an increased likelihood of injury. Having seen our students return to training this week, it is blatantly obvious that no amount of isolated home training can compete for training in a group or a team. The variables, the cognitive overload and stimulation is just not able to be replicated in isolated settings.

So as your child returns to team training, they may be labouring physically and you will see it from the sidelines as a parent. What you may not see but your athlete will definitely feel is the cognitive information overload that will happen when the masks are off and the lines of communication with team mates and the coach, the environment, and with the context of the session. This mental fatigue is invisible to the human eye but the effects can and will affect the technical, tactical, and physical element of a players make up.

Everybody that has been in lockdown has had a unique experience that only they can understand fully, so using the word of the Eagles:

Take it easy

Don't let the sound of your own wheels

Make you crazy