On your marks: How coaches prepare players for the Champions League final

One of the quirkier stories about the tense hours before a major final is told by Garry Birtles, the former Nottingham Forest forward. It relates to the lead-up to the 1979 European Cup showpiece against Malmö in Munich, when the team gathered in the garden of their hotel before departing for the stadium and Birtles was confronted by his manager Brian Clough – no fan of beards – who asked why he had stubble on his chin.

"I always do it, gaffer, it’s superstition," was Birtles’ response. "Get upstairs, get it shaved off now," retorted Clough, who lent the player his own razor to do the job. It is a story which brings a smile to the face, though Birtles tells it to make a point about Clough’s man-management: he had detected tension in the 23-year-old, and the fuss over facial foliage provided a welcome distraction.

Stick to the routine

Keeping calm and quelling the nerves before an occasion of this size are just as much of a challenge today. According to UEFA technical observer Rafa Benítez – Champions League winner with Liverpool in 2004/05 – one obvious measure a coach can take is to ensure the players’ preparations remain as close to normal as possible.

"You have to try to make the players feel comfortable and not change their routines too much. If you’ve made it to the final, it’s because you’ve done something right. So, it’s important to try to repeat the same things so that the player feels calm and confident.

"The environment doesn’t help because people around are even more excited about the final, and that can affect the players. But if the routines stay the same, the training sessions and the game plan are clear, the player gains confidence and approaches the final in a more relaxed way."

Steven Gerrard’s autobiography adds context to Benítez’s comments about unhelpful environments. Liverpool’s captain in the 2005 final recounts that "the invasion of our hotel" by fans "became a serious distraction", and how "even when I managed to find some quiet in my room, my mobile went crazy".

Benítez and his players in training ahead of their famous comeback in the 2005 final

Calmness personified

Hence the significance of a coach transmitting calm. Giovanni van Bronckhorst offers another example, in his case from Barcelona’s preparations for the 2006 final against Arsenal. Above all, he was struck by his coach Frank Rijkaard’s relaxed demeanour.

Van Bronckhorst, now also a member of UEFA’s Technical Observer Group, recalls that Rijkaard "prepared it as a normal game. He, as a coach, didn’t put any pressure on us to perform. He said we are a good team. I remember we had this meeting before we went to the stadium and a phone went off. With some coaches, if a phone were to go off in a tactical meeting before a Champions League final, they would go crazy. But I remember we were laughing and then Rijkaard laughed as well."

That is a different Rijkaard to the one Frank de Boer encountered before the 1995 final, when the then veteran Ajax midfielder was preparing for his very last game in club football against AC Milan, his former team. "He was focused all the week before," says De Boer. "It was so important for him to end his career well and against his former team-mates, and if someone started disturbing him, he’d let them know!"

Welcome distractions

As for De Boer himself, he escaped the tension by playing cards with his brother Ronald and Danny Blind – which sounds like a Dutch custom given that Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Rijkaard were spotted playing backgammon on their journey to an earlier final with Milan.

Thirty years ago, Ajax’s preparations likewise included watching a video of Milan in action and, this being 1995, the editing left a lot to be desired. "It was not like now, where they cut pieces of all the items – attacking, defending, transitions," explains De Boer, also now a UEFA Technical Observer. "It was a video of how they played. We watched around 45 minutes, and [coach Louis] van Gaal also gave some details."

De Boer recalls too the optimistic mood in the Ajax ranks owing to a recent 5-0 win against arch-rivals Feyenoord. The Dutch champions had played with a much-changed side, which "gave a big confidence for everybody involved that, if someone else came in, they could make a major impact".

Ajax celebrate after winning the 1995 final against MilanPA Images via Getty Images

Heads in the game

The question of leaving players in or out of the team for the matches ahead of a final is one that Benítez touches on as well. It can be difficult, he admits, "to keep the concentration of your players. You can talk about the next game in the league, for example, but all of them want to play in the final, so they’re focused on that."
Similar words are spoken by Arrigo Sacchi in his book The Immortals when remembering the 0-0 home draw with Cesena before his Milan side set off for the 1989 final against Steaua Bucureşti. When club president Silvio Berlusconi called him at home to express his alarm at a grey display, Sacchi replied: "Our heads are already in Barcelona."

As for the matter of getting players’ heads – and hearts – in the perfect place, Pep Guardiola famously showed his Barcelona squad a seven-minute video inspired by the film Gladiator in their Stadio Olimpico dressing room before the 2009 final victory against Manchester United.

And, 12 months earlier, United’s own players got to watch a video of the 1999 final comeback against Bayern München on the eve of their departure for the Moscow showpiece against Chelsea. The message from Sir Alex Ferguson? "That game is the history of the club."

Sir Alex Ferguson used their comeback in 1999 as motivation for his players in 2008Getty Images

Know your history – and each other

Aitor Karanka believes history, or DNA, was a factor when Real Madrid overcame Valencia in the all-Spanish final in 2000. Madrid had won the trophy two years earlier, while Valencia were competing in their first Champions League final, and Karanka noted something different in the manner of the opposition when the two squads met the day before their showdown at the Stade de France.

"We knew some of their players and, normally, when you’d see them at a league game, you’d have a joke. But we noticed they were a bit different, a bit more tense this time, and that’s something we commented on among us."

Madrid had finished fifth in La Liga and Valencia third but, as Karanka adds, Los Blancos had already won as underdogs in the previous two rounds against Manchester United and Bayern. On top of that, they had the benefit of a relaxed mood in the camp.

"We were all friends and would go out for meals together, and the success was down to the group and the atmosphere," recollects Karanka, the last of the UEFA Technical Observers surveyed for this article. "I remember we’d get together in the massage room, talking and laughing." As for coach Vicente del Bosque, "before the final, Vicente was Vicente – he was transmitting his calm to us, a sense of calm which told us he knew we’d do our best."

Aitor Karanka (right) says friendship among the Real Madrid squad contributed to their win in 2000Getty Images

Be flexible with your tactics

Tactics obviously play their part too, but, as Karanka elaborates, in the case of Madrid that season, Del Bosque had already made a key change earlier in the campaign, switching to a back three before their quarter-final against United. "That is when the team started to click, at least in the Champions League."

But what if things don’t click as intended? To return to Liverpool’s 2005 final against Milan, Benítez remembers deciding on an attacking approach beforehand. "You have to analyse the weaknesses and strengths of your team and the other team. In this case, Milan didn’t have too many weaknesses – all their players were very good players. So, we had to focus on our strengths, on our players. We tried to play with an offensive team, with five offensive players. The key was to keep the balance and defend well at the same time."

With Liverpool trailing 3-0 at half-time, Benítez brought on a defensive midfielder, Dietmar Hamann. That switch and other factors then took over on a night that ended with the Reds triumphant on penalties. "It was not working, so we had to change the tactics and approach," explains Benítez. "Thanks to the players’ effort and commitment, plus the total support from the fans, we could win the Champions League."

In short, preparations help – but you should also be prepared for the anticipated script to end up in shreds. As Sir Alex Ferguson famously put it after Man United’s late final heroics in 1999, "Football, bloody hell!"