Winter Training Camp | [FT] Rangers 2 - 2 Copenhagen

[Whosthedado 1,680]

10 hours ago, Sutton_blows_goats said:

Josh Doig to Sassuolo for 6 million euros near completion according to Italian reports.

 

The left back Hokey Cokey is about to commence 

Put your money on a new contract for Barasic and Yilmaz still to be here

[Devil's advocaat 1,541]

Barasic looked like a rabbit in the headlights on tuesday night (in a friendly!), this has to be his last season. 

[the gunslinger 3,366]

29 minutes ago, Devil's advocaat said:

Barasic looked like a rabbit in the headlights on tuesday night (in a friendly!), this has to be his last season. 

statistically the best LB in the the SPL and second best full back behind tav this season. 

 

I am sure we can get better but that is by no means certain. 

 

He was not playing on wednesday with our normal defence. 

[Devil's advocaat 1,541]

I'm sure you're correct stat-wise, but his passing and and closing down has very little to do with who he has on his right hand side, and both of those parts of his game looked alien to him. I'm far from a Barasic hater, he's been a good servant for us, but I'm afraid his time is over.

[Bill 13,717]

3 hours ago, Devil's advocaat said:

I'm sure you're correct stat-wise, but his passing and and closing down has very little to do with who he has on his right hand side, and both of those parts of his game looked alien to him. I'm far from a Barasic hater, he's been a good servant for us, but I'm afraid his time is over.

I've always viewed Barisic as one of those players we signed at a time we couldn't afford anyone better and who only found a berth at Rangers because our chaotic management merry go round prevented us from improving the squad as we should have done. Otherwise Barisic would surely have been long gone. That he survived for 6 years is testament to the wasted opportunities this club has endured.

[the gunslinger 3,366]

between injuries and rumours this camp looks like quite a bad idea. 

 

Hopefully Big Phil got some value out of it. 

[the gunslinger 3,366]

4 hours ago, Devil's advocaat said:

I'm sure you're correct stat-wise, but his passing and and closing down has very little to do with who he has on his right hand side, and both of those parts of his game looked alien to him. I'm far from a Barasic hater, he's been a good servant for us, but I'm afraid his time is over.

also been injured for weeks. 

 

anyway i suspect he will go 

[Devil's advocaat 1,541]

1 hour ago, the gunslinger said:

also been injured for weeks

As has Ryan Jack, who looked like he'd never been away....

[compo 7,030]

1 hour ago, the gunslinger said:

between injuries and rumours this camp looks like quite a bad idea. 

 

Hopefully Big Phil got some value out of it. 

a big bag of duty free

[Uilleam 5,929]

"Winter Training Camp"? In the south of Spain?

Pah!!

 

"FC Midtjylland players tackle endurance test in the Cairngorms

The footballers, in the middle of their league’s winter break, had to make their own fires and were given rifles to hunt deer for food,"

 

"The idea to expose the team and management to punishing conditions came from FC Midtjylland’s “mentality coach” Bjarne Slot Christiansen, a former soldier with the Danish special forces."

 

I think that @compo might approve of this, unless, of course, shelters and sleeping bags are a bit girly. 

 

FC Midtjylland players tackle endurance test in the Cairngorms

The footballers, in the middle of their league’s winter break, had to make their own fires and were given rifles to hunt deer for food

Michael Grant, Mark Walker

Thursday January 18 2024, 12.01am, The Times

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/danish-giants-fc-midtjylland-face-endurance-test-cairngorms-scotland-wwqzmjq5r

 

One of Denmark’s leading football teams made a three-day visit to the Highlands, where players had to endure freezing temperatures and hunt for their own food in an extreme team-bonding exercise.

While clubs from other European leagues usually head to the sun during their winter break, FC Midtjylland, who sit top of the Danish Superliga, sent their footballers on a gruelling trip to the Cairngorms.

The squad were based near Inverness and stayed on the Glenfeshie estate, owned by Anders Holch Povlsen, the Danish billionaire who owns the clothing chains Jack & Jones and Vero Moda and is the largest shareholder in Asos. Povlsen also owns FC Midtjylland, as well as tens of thousands of acres in the Scotland countryside.

 

The idea to expose the team and management to punishing conditions came from FC Midtjylland’s “mentality coach” Bjarne Slot Christiansen, a former soldier with the Danish special forces.

Players had to make their own fires and were given rifles to shoot deer, otherwise they would have had almost no food.

The club’s social media channels show footage of the players walking on snow-capped mountains, braving sub-zero temperatures and heating oatmeal. They were collected and brought back from one summit by helicopter.

Povlsen, known as the richest man in Scotland, owns about 220,000 acres of land. The businessman is embarking on one of the largest rewilding projects, which could take at least 200 years.

 

Sites owned by Povlsen and his wife, Anne, in the Cairngorms were used last autumn to rewild beavers in the area for the first time in 400 years.

Christiansen admitted he pushed the football team to the limit but had ensured the players all returned safely to their home city of Herning in the Jutland peninsula.

“There are some who are tired, and there have also been some who have burned out completely,” he said.

“But of course they come home. It is extremely hard. When we are under the most pressure, we find out that we can do more than we really think.”

 

Head coach Thomas Thomasberg said: “It was so cold that we couldn’t feel our hands and feet.”

Kristoffer Olsson, the club’s former Arsenal midfielder, said the players had been left entirely to their own devices in the wild and they had been too cold to enjoy the scenery.

 

“It’s an experience we won’t forget any time soon. We were out on long hikes in Scotland and we had to find our own food, where to sleep, water, everything,” Olsson said.

“For me the worst thing is that you didn’t get anything to eat. We got some food one day and that was it. It was truly a test, both mentally and physically. We slept in a shelter in sleeping bags, but it wasn’t so easy to fall asleep because it was really cold.

“It was so beautiful with the mountains and hills. But honestly, we didn’t have the energy to enjoy it. We were worn out and it was just about survival. It was nice to come back and get some warmth and food. Then you started to feel like a person again.”

 

The team’s experience was filmed for a three-part documentary with the Danish broadcaster TV Midtvest.

Whether the extreme approach will do them any good will become clear on Friday, when the team play a friendly match against their rivals Aalborg.

Midtjylland are nicknamed The Wolves and have been the champions of Denmark three times, most recently in 2020. They lost to Rangers in the 2019-20 Europa League qualifiers and beat Celtic in a Champions League qualifier in 2021-22.

 

Scottish Championship side Partick Thistle attracted ridicule in 2018 when their manager at the time, Gary Caldwell, arranged for players to spend a day with the Parachute Regiment.

The exercise got out of hand as players were subjected to a mock “kidnapping”, with one running away only to be hauled back by four soldiers, while another broke down in tears. Players were forced to wear ear muffs and blindfolds and were placed in head-locks by soldiers.