The Mayo man with an inside track

Giovanni Trapattoni has often referred to his detailed study of the opposition, and indeed his own players, during extensive sessions in front of a DVD player, but he missed a trick by failing to call a Mayo man with the inside track on Poland this week.

Barry Solan, perhaps the only person who can link Katie Taylor to Robert Lewandowski, sat in the dugout of tonight’s opposition throughout 2012 as their conditioning coach. The role came to a natural end at the end of the Euros, where the hosts crashed out, like Ireland, in the group stages, but having spent months in constant contact with players and staff, he is better positioned than most to provide background on tonight’s opposition.

He was on hand in December when the team’s logistic manager flew into Dublin, giving advice on where to stay, their schedule – they flew in Monday, have been staying in Carton House, with a behind closed doors session at Tallaght, before yesterday evening’s customary session at the Aviva – and will have met them for a natter before kick-off tonight.

While there was no call put in from Abbottstown direction, there has been contact from some Polish players who, despite Solan’s role ending with the side, are still eager to consult him for advice on injuries.

“I haven’t had a call from the FAI, but I’m sure they would know as much as I do at this stage,” he told ExtraTime.ie earlier this week. “But I have remained in contact with some players since I left, some have been getting in touch in relation to the knocks they have picked up with their clubs and things like that. A couple of them have been in touch with me about meeting up while they are over here as well. I’m going to head out to them on Tuesday for a few hours before they head to the Aviva training.”

How the job came about is a fascinating story in itself, starting in Hollywood a decade ago, involving Robbie Keane’s current club LA Galaxy, Jurgen Klinsmann and the world’s most famous strength and conditioning consultancy group.

 “I was working for Athletes Performance in the US and to cut a long story short, they are the leading performance facility in the world,” Solan explains. “In the States, they look after all the major athletes. Back in about 2003, when Jurgen Klinsmann was living in the States, he saw the work they were doing in the Home Depot Centre in California where LA Galaxy play.

“They worked with them and the US international team at the time, and Mark Verstegen, the guy who set up AP, developed a relationship with Klinsmann and he saw how the science behind it could help soccer teams.

“They have been working with the Germany team for eight or nine years now and that got the Polish coach Franciszek Smuda interested at the World Cup in 2010 and through various contacts the job came about.  The German fitness coach phoned me, said they needed someone so I took it.”

The role started during this international block 12 months ago – Poland playing out a scoreless draw with Portugal in Warsaw – and from that point until the Euros, Solan became something akin to George Clooney’s character in Up in the Air, hopping off one flight and on to another to meet with players, their clubs and curate plans for the build-up to the tournament.

Domestic commitments had to be maintained too – along with Taylor, he works for Laois GAA and Clontarf RFC – and he was back in Portlaoise three days later to witness the O’Moore men suffer defeat at the hands of Dublin in the league.

“From that point on I was visiting the players at their clubs, liasing with clubs’ physios and keeping in touch with the players themselves. I was over and back from Poland as well, organising training camps in the run-up to the Euros,” he says of the hectic period.

And were there any problems with a language barrier? “It wasn’t too bad, 80 to 85% of them had pretty good English. Obviously I had to slow it down and tone back the west of Ireland accent. But if anything needed translating there was a lot of them on hand to get the message across.”

His work still takes him around the world – “ I was in London for two weeks before Christmas, I was in Hungary last week giving a speech at a conference, I work with the Laois senior football team, the Clontarf rugby team and I also lecture at Tallaght IT.” – but it’s his sessions behind the scenes with national hero Katie Taylor which has perhaps garnered the best results.

He explains: “I got involved with Katie at the start of 2011 through her physio John Murphy.  I came in and worked with Pete (Katie’s father and coach); he looked after the boxing and I’d look after the prehab, rehab and strength training. We would see each other maybe on a Tuesday and a Friday but that schedule changes depending on if she’s fighting. I wouldn’t see her for 12 days before a fight, for instance.”