"Professional Footballers Association (PFA) camp for unattached footballers is packed with familiar names"
"It is a day every footballer has lived a thousand times. Breakfast, banter, stretching. Bit of light warm-up work in the gym, then pick up the GPS tracker which has your surname on a piece of masking tape."
"Bibs and cones, shuttle runs, a rondo. Then a small-sided game of terrifying speed with coaches barking "pick it up!". The standard looks fearsome, yet none of the 40-odd participants has a club to play for."
A Professional Footballers Association camp brings together familiar-name professionals who are currently unattached. The routine mimics a regular matchday: breakfast, banter, stretching and light gym warm-up. Players collect GPS trackers labelled with their surnames on masking tape before moving to drills. Training includes bibs, cones, shuttle runs and rondos, followed by a blistering small-sided game. Coaches repeatedly urge players to increase tempo with shouts like "pick it up!". Despite the intense quality and pace on display, none of the roughly 40 participants currently holds a club contract.
Read at Independent
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