Julen Lopetegui spoke enthusiastically about the work his West Ham United squad are doing on their Sunshine State Tour of Florida.
The Hammers have been in the United States since Sunday, training in Tampa on the Gulf Coast before flying 45 minutes north east to Jacksonville, where they trained in front of the Claret and Blue Army on Friday ahead of Saturday’s Stateside Cup tie with Premier League rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers at Everbank Stadium.
The trip has accompanied by hot and humid weather conditions and daily thunderstorms in the late afternoon, meaning Lopetegui and his staff have scheduled sessions early in the morning and in the early evening to avoid the heat and rain.
The Spaniard has also worked without a number of senior international players, who have been on post-tournament breaks, but either returned this week or will do next, meaning over a dozen Academy of Football prospects have made the trip to Florida.
At the same time, Lopetegui has also been in regular contact with Technical Director Tim Steidten over the potential recruitment of new players to add to his squad ahead of the Premier League kick-off in three weeks’ time.
It has been a whirlwind period since the 59-year-old was officially appointed on 1 July, but he is loving every challenge he faces, and is confident that his philosophy will be ingrained in his players come Saturday 17 August.
A time to work and learn
The pre-season is going well. We are working hard and for it's time to work very hard to be ready for a very demanding season, so that’s why we’re trying to take advantage of all the time that we have here. We are doing that every day in training and in the game we have on Saturday as we are interested in our preparation for next season. It’s time to work and starting to learn more about ourselves and being ready for the start.
We are ready to work, so we are trying to translate our way to understand the football. We are trying to put in the best way their skills too, knowing the type of players that we have. It’s true until now have been without a few players because of the Euros and the Copa America, so step by step we have more players. For us, it's a key time and we would like to have the whole group as soon as possible because it’s a very important time of the season to have all the players to have more time to translate the way we play in our daily work and, of course, in our matches.
Regular contact with Tim Steidten
Tim is here with us and, of course, we talk every day a lot of times, but we have to put the focus on the players who are here as they are the most important players now, for sure.
Of course, we’re going to need new players and I know the Club and Tim are working hard to have the players we need to come as soon as possible to start the season, but it’s about the players who are here and putting the focus on these players because we are working with them.
The players are going to arrive in the next days and three of them arrived on Monday in Tomas, Antonio and Vladi so step by step we will have more players to work in the best way for the start of the season, for sure.
The benefits of coming to Florida
Visiting Florida gives our fans the chance to stay with us, too. We know that we have a lot of fans around the world so it's a good time to see them and to have a relationship with them, and of course it’s about taking advantage of the facilities that we have here.
This is the pre-season that the Club has prepared and we have to take advantage of this time because it's an important time to be on the pitch. This is a key time to put our plan forward and have energy about the understanding we have in our football and translating to the players our ideas in the best way and, of course, working hard.
We have to adapt. In football, you can play in 40 degrees and after five minutes it can be raining, so it’s not one condition for us. We are happy with our facilities and have been getting up very early to have better weather to work and to try to avoid the storms!
It's important for us because we have ten or 12 days to work, so we have to avoid this kind of storm [and having to cancel any training sessions] and to adapt, as in football you have to adapt.
Is winning or trying new things in pre-season most important?
It's a very good question. Both! It's always important to win, but it's important to prepare the team and each team has their context about the players who are not here.
It's time to put the players in the best way, but you need time for that and we're in the middle of the pre-season. Of course, all of us want the best preparation and winning is better for the confidence of the players.
It’s true that it’s time to prepare for the first match [of the Premier League] but for sure, all of us are going to try and win each match in the pre-season as it's good for the group and for the confidence of the players.
Memories of being at the USA '94 World Cup with Spain
For sure, we are all using our experiences. All of them are going to help us in our decisions and how we are going to develop our work.
I have very good memories about the World Cup in ‘94 here in the USA. I remember we played at different times than Spain do now. It was a different style, but we were very close to arriving in the final. I remember we went out in the quarter-finals from a little decision but we had a very strong group in this time.
I remember that in this time, all those experiences are good for you to develop your work as a coach, for sure.
Young players making their mark
We are trying to know more about the young players that we have, for sure. They are helping us a lot because we have started pre-season without nine first-team players. Right now we have 14 Academy players with us, so the Academy players are working very hard and helping us to be competitive every day.
Every day we want good help from the young players and this ambition to stay in the first team is always good for us, but I won't name any individual names. They're all working very well and hopefully one of them is going to help us during the season.
