Celtic’s youth team touched down in Turkey today for an intensive 14 day training programme as part of the Leonardo da Vinci Coaching Initiative
Thoughts of sun, sand, sea and king sized kebabs for the young hoops can be dismissed with two and three training sessions a day planned at their Antalya base.
The da Vinchi programme is funded by the European Union and requires clubs to put together an intensive programme of training and development.
A fortnight of training under the sun will be the perfect tonic to a stop start season that due to weather problems and international commitments have limited Stevie Frail’s side to just nine competitive game so far.
The second half of the campaign promises to be hectic as they attempt to retain the SPL title and SFA Youth Cup with Frail looking forward to a fortnight of hard graft under the Turkish sun.
“Some people might look on it as a holiday but it’s far from that,” he explained. “This is the first time we’ve used this scheme and the timing of it is absolutely perfect.
“We hardly trained on grass during December. This trip will give us good facilities, a nice climate and we’ll be doing at least two training sessions a day and sometimes three.
“We’ve got two games arranged, one against a Turkish side and another with a Russian club.
“Our schedule has been carefully planned, it’s a balance between football and fitness. Ian Coll our fitness coach is very important, he works well with the players, he gets them fit and looks after them.
“It’ll be good to get a lot of work in when the weather is miserable at home. Hopefully the weather will improve but we’ve now got the guarantee of two weeks working on grass in a nice climate.”
Captain Matty Hughes
Celtic’s last competitive match in the u-19 league was on November 20 against Motherwell which they won 3-1.
Since then the indoor training facility at Ravenscraig has proved to be invaluable but Frail is looking forward to getting back on grass and into the competitive action.
“We’ve been at Ravenscraig a lot, it’s a fantastic facility, the staff have been first class with us but to be honest I don’t really want to see them again!” he joked.
“The people there have been fantastic with us but we all want to get back working on grass and playing matches again.
“We’v got two weeks hard work to get on with then we can kick off again in the league and cup.
“The season so far has been very frustrating, it’s been stop start and we’ve not been able to build up any momentum.
“When we get back there’s a bit of catching up to do with fixtures but we’ve got a good squad and want to repeat the way that we finished last season.
“We’ve got a good squad of players with us in Turkey, hopefully when we get back Greg Spence won’t be too far away from playing again.
“He was close to making the trip and has had a tough time of it this season with injury. We’re hopeful he’ll be upto speed by the time that we get back and it won’t be too long before he’s featuring again in the team.”
Biram Kayal- the real entrance
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