LISBON Lion Willie Wallace has cast doubt on whether contemporary players are as fit as they were in his heyday.
The received wisdom is that the influence of sports science, advanced nutritional education and the forensic attention paid to every aspect of the physical and mental fitness of players has helped to mould greater athletes with every generation.
Indeed, the theory that current players are fitter than before gains credence with the '60s and '70s reminisces that include fags and booze playing a starring role but for Wallace, the old-school philosophy still trumps the laptop research that is now part of daily life at every club.
“We would spend at least a couple of weeks early season building our fitness up and really work hard,” he said. “Nowadays the guideline is keeping an eye on your pulse and all of that and they keep telling me that that they are fitter but I don’t think they are as fit as we were.
“We would at least do about five or six weeks [of pre-season]. The first two weeks was to build up your stamina and toughen yourself up. We wouldn’t see a ball for maybe two or three weeks. Nowadays you can’t train without a ball. It never did us any harm.”
As Celtic went into a third successive season with almost the same group of players, there has been a feeling that it is a squad beginning to reach its shelf life.
Brendan Rodgers’ invincibles squad have a few chinks in their armour already this term but Wallace has revealed that Jock Stein, Celtic’s most celebrated manager, had a unique way of maintaining the hunger and freshness in his squad.
“I had one spell where I hadn’t scored for four or five games and I was wondering when is it going to come, the chop?” he said. “It never came until I had scored two goals in a match and then he left me out. He said if he had taken me out when you were down you might have stayed there. He just had that knack of doing it.”
At least there was an explanation offered to Wallace. It was not always the case when players found themselves on the outside looking in.
“Today there is a system where they rest players,” the 78-year-old said. “It never happened in our day. The team that was playing well got left alone and you played until someone got injured or he would make a change. There was a centre-half at Aberdeen and I never did very well against him so sometimes he would leave me out the side for Aberdeen at times, although over the years I had good success over Aberdeen but Jock was a master at that. Keeping you up there and keeping you motivated. You knew you had to go out there and have bottle otherwise you wouldn’t be in the side.
“He would explain why or sometimes he didn’t. You just had to accept it and work harder.”
Willie Wallace will speak at the Legends of Football event at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall tomorrow.
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