Quote Originally Posted by KITZ View Post
It has very little to do with what you are wearing (other than from a confidence and psychological standpoint), its about how hard you work, talent will only get you so far.

Here's a question though, what is the right amount of training? If we want to produce players of that calibre that what does or should the training load (and games I suppose as an extension of that) look like?
Stole this from here:
http://www.dunedinfootballacademy.com/training-hours

On average, European academies train as follows:

Team Training (Average volume):
U12 and below: 41-42 weeks/year, 3x per week consisting of 4-5 hours training.
U13-U15: 44 weeks/year, 5x per week consisting of more than 7 hours training.
U16+: 45 weeks/year, 5x per week consisting of about 9 hours training.

Individual Training (Average volume):
U12 and below: once per week, 30-60 minutes.
U13-U15: twice per week, 90 minutes.
U16+: at least twice per week, about 120 minutes.