Training Ground Guru Podcast

Episode #77 of the Training Ground Guru Podcast, in association with Genius Sports, is with Ben Ryan, the Performance Director of Premier League side Brentford.

Ben is responsible for making sure that the club's players are mentally and physically equipped for matchday. 

Before joining Brentford four years ago, Ben consulted with a number of leading organisations and was Head Coach of Fiji's rugby sevens team, leading them to Olympic glory in 2016.

Ben told us how someone from a rugby background landed a top role in football, what it's like to work with Head Coach Keith Andrews and about the club's secret supremacy rating. 

We hope you enjoy this episode and if you do, please give us a follow via your preferred podcast provider. 

SHOW NOTES =>

01:31: Facilities at the training ground, where the interview is taking place.

03:05: Concerns about players being pampered?

04:39: What does your role as Performance Director involve?

07:19: What have you been doing today?

11:50: Changes that took place at the end of last season, when Thomas Frank left and Keith Andrews took over as Head Coach.

15:54: How Keith Andrews confounded the critics and doubters. 

20:05: Brentford's supremacy rating. Taking a strategic view and not being overtaken by the emotion of results. 

23:22: Clever recruitment and importance of developing players.

26:00: Coming into football from rugby union. Importance of looking outside football networks. 

31:22: Head Coach of Fiji Rugby Sevens team - chalk and cheese with Premier League football. 

39:47: GPS - one of the first teams to use it (with England Rugby in 2006) but not the panacea and won't be important forever. 

42:07: Risk of over-monitoring players/ 24-hour surveillance.

43:58: Power of play/ how Brentford break up routine and regimen.

46:59: Setting up guard rails. Analogy about going across Firth of Forth Bridge.

48:52: Europe on the horizon. Challenge of extra games.

52:23: Premium Member question. Lessons from rugby. Chaos and surprise.

55:51: Ambitions: personally and for the club as a whole.

Episode #76 of the Training Ground Guru Podcast, in association with Genius Sports, is with US Soccer Sporting Director Matt Crocker.

Matt has been in role for almost three years and is responsible for setting the Federation’s sporting vision and performance strategy across all 27 national teams.

2026 is going to be a huge year for both Matt and US Soccer, with the opening of a new national training centre in Georgia and hosting a home World Cup. 

Before joining US Soccer, the proud Welshman was Head of Coaching and Development for the English Football Association and Director of Football for Southampton. I spoke to him about his career, about his current role and about his ambitions for this summer and beyond.

We hope you enjoy this episode and if you do, please give us a follow via your preferred podcast provider. 

SHOW NOTES =>

01:57: Opening of the new National Training Centre.

06:48: Big year ahead, with a home men's World Cup in the summer.

08:30: Almost three years in post now - reflections so far.

13:07: Pay to play in United States/ what is being done to make football more accessible for all. 

16:18: Academy system in US compared to in England.

17:37: Composition of the senior squads - mostly based in Europe or at home?

19:13: Is this summer's World Cup key to growing the game in US?

20:52: What would constitute success for US at the World Cup?

23:10: How impressed have you been by Mauricio Pochettino? 

24:42: Was it hard to land Pochettino and Emma Hayes?

25:54: US Women winning the Olympics just 10 weeks after Hayes had been appointed

27:37: Do the two Head Coaches - and others within the Federation - provide challenge for you?

28:58: How Hayes keeps him "on his toes."

29:44: Will Pochettino get longer with his players than eg Thomas Tuchel in run-up to World Cup. 

31:18: Personal journey - starting his career at Cardiff City. Influence of Gavin Tait.

34:26: Joining Southampton as Academy Manager in 2006.

37:41: Pochettino developing young players at Southampton.

39:20: Joining Football Association as Head of Coaching and Player Development in 2013.

41:05: Three mentors: Dan Ashworth, Dave Reddin and Kirk Vallis.

44:04: Benefits of hiring people from outside football/ having diversity of ideas and experience.

46:10: Returning to Southampton as Director of Football in 2019.

50:49: Joining US Soccer as their second ever Sporting Director in 2023.

52:23: Confidence had been "rock bottom" after Southampton.

54:16: Difficulty of sticking to a long-term plan at a club.

56:02: One of first things he did was reappoint Gregg Berhalter as Men’s Head Coach through to the 2026 World Cup. A year later he was sacked after early exit in Copa America.

57:25: Ambitions for the future - return to grassroots coaching.

Our guest on Episode #75 of the TGG Podcast, in association with Teamworks, is Merijn Zeeman.

Merijn is the General Manager of AZ Alkmaar - a team that regularly compete at the top of the Eredivisie, despite having a budget that's dwarfed by their bigger rivals.

Prior to joining AZ, Merijn was the Sporting Director at Dutch cycling outfit Team Visma, helping them create history by winning all three Grand Tours in 2023.

In this episode, Merijn told us about the lessons he has taken from cycling into football, about how AZ have managed to outsmart the opposition and about their recent collaboration with Teamworks and Luke Bornn.

We hope you enjoy this episode and if you do, please follow us via your preferred podcast provider.

SHOW NOTES =>

02:18: Big clubs in Holland have a budget 4 to 5x that of AZ.

03:30: Started at AZ in December 2024. Came in from cycling, where he was Sporting Director. Spent 10 years there. 

05:08: How Team Visma were transformed from also-rans to winners of three Grand Tours in one season. Culture had been bad/ still had one of lowest budgets.

08:55: How they transformed the culture. "It is not logical to expect a group of people will work good together."

14:22: Bringing in influences from outside cycling and why.

17:51: Move into football with AZ. How it came about.

19:07: General Manager role - not one we hear about often in UK football. What does it involve?

21:54: What makes AZ special and even unique as a club? Average finish of 3.8 in the Eredivisie in last 10 years.

26:27: Was the transition from cycling to football difficult? Originally from Alkmaar, which helped. Relationship with Dave Brailsford and also Erik ten Hag, who invited him to watch training at Manchester United.

29:33: How club use data. Influence of Billy Beane and Luke Bornn. Team Visma used data to overcome one outstanding rival rider. Use of Teamworks Intelligence and how it has helped. "One of the ambitions is that in maybe five years we can win games because we understand the game better through data than any other team." 

35:06: Big thing has been making data more accessible to the coaches at the club. 

36:48: How AZ use Teamworks Intelligence. Big thing is merging event and tracking data. Previously the club had tried to develop their own model. 

39:23: Using objective data to counter biases in decision-making. "For a lot of coaches it is about opinions or visions, not about objective information. It is very hard to progress if you don't have objective information."

42:25: How Team Visma used data to usurp a dominant rival rider. Taking this lesson into football.

45:35: What are the club's ambitions for the future?

Our guest on Episode #74 of the TGG Podcast, in association with Teamworks, is Jamie Hamilton.

Jamie is a UEFA A Licence coach and has become one of the most important thinkers in football coaching, with his work on positionism and relationism.

This has struck a chord with coaches, players and fans, at all levels of the game, and is influencing a change of approach.

SHOW NOTES =>

01:50: Jamie's background - as a coach and writer.

04:06: How he first became interested in the concept of positionism. Influence of Pep Guardiola. Desire of positionists to turn chaos into order. Inspiration of Fernando Diniz at Fluminense. 

19:20: Guardiola's teams becoming more controlled and ordered in the last five years. Finding Premier League teams more formulaic and less inspirational than they could be with the players available.

20:29: Coaches putting players into slots in pre-designed systems, rather than evaluating who you have, as people and players, and making the best of them.

31:38: Head Coach as a "top-down controller", thus constraining freedom. Enzo Maresca has said that there IS freedom - by virtue of the player receiving the ball having time and not being under pressure. But this is a certain definition of freedom and very different to the definition that a relational coach like Carlo Ancelotti would use. He gives his players freedom to move where they please too.

35:30: Defences are getting more attuned in how to combat positional systems. Becoming more physical, utilising man-to-man marking more. The inherent predictability of positional systems is being countered. So where now? This is where relational football can come in. 

42:12: Coaches are worried about what happens when they lose the ball if they don't use positional systems. This isn't necessarily true though.

46:55: Teams have started using man-to-man pressing systems to combat positionalism, eg Bournemouth. This has led to teams hitting long balls into space with a classic number 9 chasing. Set pieces have also come more and more to the fore. There have been some creative solutions, eg Kane dropping very deep for Bayern Munich v Borussia Dortmund, but the most interesting solutions have tended to be outside the Premier League.

53:50: Bayern Assistant Rene Maric has said (on this podcast) that "tactics don't exist." Need for players to think in the moment.

56:52: Definition of relationism in layman's language. Positionism is zonal, inspired by handball. Relationism is non-zonal with exponents like Diniz, Ancelotti and Scaloni.

1:05:32: Need to let players play and not over coach. Good example of Messi and Suarez. Ability to let go and to be surprised.

Our guest on Episode #73 of the TGG Podcast, in association with Teamworks, is Rob Mackenzie.

Rob is the Head of Scouting at Tottenham and has worked for the Europa League champions for two years. 

Prior to Spurs, he was Head of Recruitment at Aston Villa and at Leuven in Belgium, and Head of Technical Scouting at Leicester City, helping to lay the foundations for their Premier League triumph. 

In this episode Rob gave us the inside track on Tottenham's scouting operation and gave insights into his two decades in the game. 

SHOW NOTES =>

02:40: What does Head of Scouting role involve? Who is in your team?

10:17: Squad building is a continual process. Importance of long-term strategy and alignment. Working to a game model.

18:47: How involved is Thomas Frank in the scouting process?

22:58: Was there a change in strategy in terms of the players you signed this summer?

26:25: How do you scout character? Example of Mohammed Kudus.

32:34: How important is athleticism and physicality when scouting/ selecting players? 

37:34: How important is robustness/ availability.

42:50: Does a player's financials form part of the scouting picture (ie their wages/ what the potential transfer fee might be)?

46:06: Getting into football with Leicester City/ how Riyad Mahrez was 'discovered'.

58:07: Why it's getting harder to discover hidden gems. Example of signing Jhon Duran at Aston Villa.

1:01:04: Signing Lucas Bergvall, a "true generational talent."