West Brom v Sheffield Utd: Carlos Corberan urges Baggies to maintain first day intensity
One of Carlos Corberan’s first exchanges with his new Albion players was simple – don’t look to impress me on day one and then come off the gas.
The Baggies’ new head coach oversees training today for the third and final time ahead of his first fixture at the helm, at home to Sheffield United tomorrow (12.30pm).
Former Huddersfield and Olympiacos boss Corberan is about intensity, desire and detail, first and foremost, and those attributes shone through at his unveiling press conference yesterday.
He faces a huge job – firstly to lift a second-tier giant away from the Championship drop zone and then to bridge the 12-point gap between Albion and the top six.
“I said to the players working well with me on the first day is easy,” said Corberan, 39.
“The challenge is the consistency, the challenge is to make the first day of training the least intense day of training.
“With this we are going to improve, I don’t have any type of doubt.
“So my target with them is to create this level of intensity, stability and consistency and start demanding in the group to be the strongest we can be.”
Corberan’s first experience of English football was as youth coach at Leeds United. Then, upon the Elland Road club’s appointment of world-renowned intensity-fuelled head coach Marcelo Bielsa, he worked as the experienced Argentine’s deputy.
There he assisted Bielsa’s ‘murderball’ training sessions, an high-intensity training game featuring no stoppages nicknamed as such by Leeds players.
Corberan, though, is focused on psychological gains at The Hawthorns. The focus on how a belief, confidence and a self-demand can be the difference.
Asked about the intense style Corberan transferred to Huddersfield – and the levels he perceives to have adopted at Albion – the head coach added: “There are many things (with intensity).
“The first thing for me is psychological, because for me you don’t play football well if you don’t believe in you.
“To play the game of football you need some level of confidence to want to play, to want to take the risk that the game demands of you to perform well.
“So the first point is psychological, to believe, and trust in you and believe in you in the positive moments is easy – when everyone is talking very good words about you, believing in you, it’s the most simple thing in life.
“But believing about you when things are not working well is a challenge, but it’s a challenge we have been brought in in front of us – belief.
“Because I believe in the group of players in front of us, but at the same time if you only believe and do not push yourself to your limits then it is not going to be enough.
“For me that is why the balance about the self-demanding and self-confidence is key, don’t unbalance this point. Put these two points in the highest level that we can put.
“It is easy to find the players with a lot of energy and desire the first day, but I want to see this level of desire every single day that I work here.”
