“New coach, sure victory,” says one of the most popular sayings in Spanish football.. But, what about after the debut of the new coach? The data, which in the end are what give validity to the reflections, explain something different from that saying.. And if you, dear reader, have ever thought “with this coach practically nothing is going to change” and cast your gaze, like many, towards the planning of the squad or the level of the footballers, know that you are right, that statistics confirm what was an open secret. Changing coaches in the middle of the season improves the physical data of the players and gives a boost to the team's points for a very short period of time, maximum four games, but then, like the foam on beer, it dilutes until reaching levels of effort and success similar to those they had before the results crisis that led to the dismissal of the previous coach. Nobody does magic.

The theory comes from any player, coach or football fan, but the practical data has been put on the table by a study carried out between the University of Extremadura, Nottingham Trent University in the United Kingdom and the Sports Research Section of LaLiga. The three entities have studied all the matches played in the First and Second Division during four seasons, between the 2015 and 2019 academic years.. 2,950 First Division matches in which one constant is clear: the players run more in the four games after the change of coach and the team gets more points per game, but then the values return to a figure similar to the previous one.

«The effect of the change lasts four games. It is a short-term effect. The best thing is a long-term project,” Roberto López del Campo, member of the study and coordinator of LaLiga's Sports Research area, explains to EL MUNDO.. «The players see a new opportunity with the change of coach and are more motivated, improving physical data. And if you change it is because something is wrong, so at first it is logical that there will be an improvement in the statistics, but in general it does not guarantee you anything. Only four games. If you want him to perform more physically, change the coach, but he will not give you more points over time.. There is no such 'coach effect'. It's a 'mirage effect,'” López de Campo reflects.

From 0.68 points to 1.35

If we look at the points data of the teams that changed their coach mid-season between the 2015 and 2019 seasons, we find that in the four games before the dismissal they achieved an average of 0.68 points per game and in the rear four 1.35. But in the long term, once this initial novelty has been overcome, the researchers assure that “there are no statistically significant differences.”

Of course, the physical statistics do improve, although as López del Campo indicates “high intensity does not give points, what has to run is the ball”. For example, this season the club with the most high-intensity races (more than 21 km/h) is Celta de Vigo, second to last classified. The change of coach had a positive effect on the effort of the players of the affected teams, who ran, according to the study, 164 meters more per game at high intensity after the dismissal. And in total distance traveled per match, the arrival of the new coach is also noticeable: 695 meters more than before in the first four duels and 866 meters more in the remainder of the season.. They run more, yes, but the points are the same as before. «In the long term, in general, there is no improvement in points. We have to let ourselves work, because immediacy eats us up,” adds López del Campo.

Four with new technician

This season four teams have changed coaches: Villarreal, Sevilla, Almería and Granada, maintaining their position in the table for the moment. The trend warns that there will be more dismissals during the course. In 22-23 we had 11 between Elche, Sevilla, Villarreal, Valencia, Valladolid, Espanyol, Getafe and Celta. Do these teams sound familiar to you? No one is among the top eight. “The data says that if you bet, the results end up being good,” adds López del Campo, with the examples of Alguacil or Míchel.

Knowing the need for clubs to give a physical and emotional boost to their locker room during the season, many coaches study the statistics and playing style of teams that are doing poorly in case a call arises.. That's where LaLiga comes in, which now trains unemployed coaches in these analysis tools to stay “up to date with the competition.”. One of those hot positions is that of Sevilla, which has already changed José Luis Mendilibar for Diego Alonso and could look for another candidate if things do not end up working out..

The Andalusian team, curiously, has 10 injured, an extremely high number. «Be careful with injuries when changing coaches. The players put in the effort and there is an overexertion,” reasons López del Campo. Almería has eight in the infirmary and Villarreal, seven. Everything influences. And almost nothing changes.

The CP website. Flecha Negra de Badajoz is not yet updated. In the “Professional Players” section there are Fernando Pacheco, goalkeeper of RCD Espanyol, or Javi Galán, left-back of Atlético de Madrid, but no sign of Assane Diao, the new star of Real Betis Balompié.

Searching their photo galleries, with the recognizable white shirt of the Extremaduran club, we found an image of the Spaniard born in Senegal. Alevín C. 2015/2016 season. And a smile identical to the one he showed the other day very close to there, at the Villanovense Municipal Stadium, when his team defeated the locals in the Copa del Rey with two goals in the last minutes.. That night the Betis fans were embraced with relief and anger.

Assane Diao Diaoune (Ndongane, Senegal; 2005) became the second youngest footballer in history to score two goals in his first two games in the First Division on the eighth day of the League. In only two appearances, with the number 38, against Granada and Valencia, the winger earned a place in Manuel Pellegrini's schemes. Since September, 590 minutes in the League, 181 in the Europa League and four games with the Spanish under-21 team. Conclusive data for just a beginner.

“What do you feed them?”

“He hasn't gotten anywhere yet,” his mother said when the media asked her about Assane.. “Sometimes going up suddenly is not good, it is better to be patient,” replied his father, Mossa, a Senegalese who arrived in Spain by jumping the Ceuta fence in 1996 after passing through Libya, Tunisia and Morocco.

“What do you feed them?” they asked Mossa when he took his children to training. They always stood out on their teams for their play and strength. But at home they always contained the euphoria. They are a working family where the soccer routine was contingent on good academic performance. In fact, Assane is enrolled at the University and is studying Teaching in parallel with his professionalization in the green and white team.

Assane Diao stands out for his physique, his speed and his punch. 1.85 tall. Verticality and self-confidence. «He started as a center back in 7-a-side football, but he rose a lot. He liked to go to the opposite goal. So the coach started trying him as a midfielder and he stood out there. Box to box type. In fact, Betis signed him for midfield, but upon seeing his stride and shot, they brought him closer to the area. And he stayed up there,” says one of his training technicians.

“a slump is normal”

«He is polite, he is receptive, he is a very intelligent boy. “He has always been far ahead of what he was supposed to offer at his age,” they say from Betis. «He has a twin brother, who plays for the Cádiz youth team. But he is separated, because he does not want to renew,” they add. Perhaps we will soon be able to see Usse Diao in the youth ranks of the Heliopolitan club, as we already saw Yassin Fekir, Nabil's brother. In Seville there is already talk of the interest of English football in the player, and even of Real Madrid, who will visit Benito Villamarín today. «Assane had a lot of impact and a drop in performance is normal. “What he is doing is very good,” said his coach, after a few games with less presence in his team's game.

But at the club they know that their football will have a long way to go and Assane, the son of a Senegalese tinker with his feet on the ground who only wants his children to study, will be important for the shield of the thirteen bars.

There are nine worlds in Norse mythology and Ken Stornes (Harstad, Norway, 1988), like the rest of the humans, is in Midgard, although who would have thought?. Stornes is not a Viking, but he looks like one. Its appearance is fierce, imposing and its lifestyle is similar to that of the ancient civilization that terrified the world from Norway, totally nomadic and reckless.. “I like to be uncomfortable, if I'm comfortable for too long, I get depressed,” he said in a recent interview.

Martial arts and MMA fighter, one day a friend suggested that he join the Norwegian Army Special Forces after a year of military service.. Stornes, accustomed to hard training, managed to enter and his friend failed. He did it in January, in Norway, at -25 degrees Celsius, with all that that entails. “I fell in love with the cold,” he confessed.

He thereafter served five years in the military, including a 2011 tour of duty in Afghanistan, until a car accident broke his back and forced him to leave a profession he loved and, according to doctors, abandon a lifestyle based on fitness and gymnastics. But he had other plans. “The day I left the hospital I went to the gym to do weightless leg curls,” he revealed.

Stornes in an ice water bath. instagram

So, willing to find a new path that would fill “the void” that the army had left him, he dedicated himself to extreme sports.. Jiujitsu, gymnastics and tricking, a kind of parkour, are your usual and most normal dose of madness, Death Diving or Døds is what will take you to Valhalla (the Norse sky) without passing through the famous Bifrost protected by the god Heimdall.

Stornes has just broken, again, the record for Death Diving from a cliff in his native Norway. The 35-year-old former soldier jumped from a rock 40.5 meters high. To do so, he had to throw a stone first to break the surface of the water so that it would not have the consistency of a layer of cement when he crossed it at more than 100 kilometers per hour.

“Again, we bring the Death Dive record to Norway, where it belongs,” he wrote in his Instagram post in which you can see this superman's jump.. Stornes recovered the brand that had been taken from him by the Frenchman Côme Girardøt this summer. Girardøt launched from 34.25 meters when Stornes' previous height was 31.3.

Philosophy

“My goal is to be better every day. I didn't expect to have so much attention on this Death diving thing,” Stornes said in a previous interview.. But the attention he receives, more than 500 thousand followers on Instagram, is not only because of the sport he practices, but also because of the philosophy of life he preaches based on exercise.. “We can all do everything, we just have to move,” he says.. In his case, it is the soldier who continues to inhabit him that “pushes him to do things.”

It is curious that the sport he chose is a variation of a discipline that was born as something absolutely trivial.. The Døds appeared in the 70s Frognerbadet, a swimming pool complex, where different young people from Oslo gathered to do pirouettes from the 10-meter diving board to impress the girls present.. One of the pioneers was Erling Bruno Hovden, guitarist of the Raga Rockers.. Today there are national championships in Norway in which the Bruno Prize is awarded to the best jumpers.

The Norwegian in a natural waterfall. instagram

Jumps can contain pirouettes in the air or simply fall with arms and legs stretched, as if you were going down in free fall, only without a parachute.. Of course, they have a condition that is to put themselves in the fetal position just before entering the water, introducing their hands and feet first.. To understand each other, like when we are standing and we try to touch the tips of our feet.

Ken Stornes says that Death Diving has transformed his life. The Viking without vertigo and without fear makes pushing limits a way of life. It must be taken into account that their records are in Norwegian waters which, at this time of year, must be around five degrees Celsius. But, as Stornes himself writes on his Instagram: “Always do, what you are afraid to do.”

P.S.. Kids, don't do this at home.

The fearless Viking in a waterfall. instagram

Spain has gotten into trouble in the Women's Handball World Cup. This Sunday (4:30 p.m., TDP) they will have to beat the Netherlands, which is virtually qualified, but will want to defend its group leadership. If the team falls, it will depend on a difficult carom to be in the quarterfinals. As I said: a good mess. The defeat this Friday against the Czech Republic (30-22) was a painful setback for several reasons. Because of the shearing it caused in the classification, of course, but also because of the sensations.

Because until now Spain had an immaculate World Cup – four victories in four games – but it was aware that all its rivals were not up to par. The oversize of a championship with 32 teams and the nature of handball, eminently Central European, cause these anomalies. They passed Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Brazil and Argentina and you couldn't tell if the team was playing well or badly. Against Brazil, if anything, it was proven that there is character. Little more. Czech Republic was the first real test and it ended in disappointment.

Faced with a team with a very sunk 6:0 defense, on the line, the team missed an outside shot – Shandy Barbosa was absent in the tournament – and turned to the creation of Silvia Arderius. It barely worked. In the first half he could only score nine goals and in the second, despite the momentum, 13 more. The performances of Petra Kudlackova, the Czech goalkeeper, and Marketa Jerabkova, the most experienced full-back of a very young team, were commendable, but above all the defeat was a demerit for Spain.

The Czech Republic was supposed to be an affordable rival – it has never played in the Olympic Games, it has never been in the quarterfinals of a World Cup – and now the Netherlands will demand a higher level. The 'Oranje' team was world champion just recently, in 2019, and maintains references from then such as the center back Estavana Polman, MVP of that tournament, or the winger Lois Abbingh, top scorer. Spain has gotten into trouble.

In 1995, the International Rugby Football Board, now World Rugby, decided to allow South Africa to rejoin the World Championship after not participating in the New Zealand 1987 and England 1991 editions after being sanctioned for its apartheid policy.. Nelson Mandela's victory in the 1994 elections and the construction of a young and fragile democracy needed a symbol. And for this symbol, Mandela, chose rugby.

“It was a way to neutralize threats from the extreme right,” says John Carlin, a British journalist who was then working as a correspondent in the South African country.. Carlin is the author of the book The Human Factor, which analyzes Mandela's ability to unite the South African people, which crystallized when the Sprinboks team qualified for the final of the 1995 Rugby World Cup, in which they would have as their rival the fearsome new zealand. A party that holds a curse.

Recently, the death of Hannes Strydom, South African second line, at the age of 58, after a traffic accident, was announced.. It was not the first incident he had suffered with his car.. Strydom had already had to spend several days in the ICU after an attempted kidnapping while driving his vehicle through the streets of Pretoria. The former player faced several assailants.

The shadow of doping

Strydom's death was not that of any athlete. His was the seventh death of the participants in that mythical final.. All of them have disappeared before reaching the age of 60.

Cancers claimed South African team coach Kitsch Christie (58 years old) in 1998, and flanker Ruben Kruger (40 years old) in 2010.. Jonah Lomu, the only New Zealander affected by this curse, also died at the age of 40.. Kidney disease ended his existence in 2015.

Later, in 2017, another of the best players from that 1995 World Cup, scrum-half Joost van der Westhuizen (46 years old), died from a neurodegenerative disease.. Two years later, heart attacks claimed James Small and Chester Williams (50 and 49 years old, respectively).

Strydom is the last of this tragic list that, although coincidental, already raises the eyebrows of many in the African country. “It never occurred to me that it was a case of bad luck.”. It is true that it is curious because they are young and were physically well in their day,” answers Carlin, very empirical.

There are many speculations, most of them unfounded, that try to explain what happened to these athletes.. 30% of that Springbok team has died. It is true that there is an ongoing investigation that affects the premature death of 400 former players of this sport and that has to do with brain injuries caused by blows to the head, but due to the variety of causes in this case, I would not enter this section. It is not an explanation, but it is a rumor that speaks of possible doping, a matter fueled by the testimony of a great protagonist.

François Pienaar, the Springboks captain, admitted in an interview a few years after that final that he consumed supplements that helped performance. “I started taking pills because everyone was doing it,” he explained about some stimulants he took in 1992.. “They helped get through the hard 80 minutes if you had physical problems,” the captain confessed.

INDIGESTION

To add more mystery to that final, it is worth remembering Suzie, a waitress who appeared in the All Blacks kitchen staff the day several of the New Zealand players suffered food poisoning.. Years later, Mandela's assigned bodyguard claimed that the team had been poisoned.. However, the All Blacks coach blamed it on spoiled milk.. «These guys were in extraordinary condition and that happened two nights before the final. If the spoiled food had been consumed a day before the game, it could have affected them,” says Carlin.. The journalist also assures that there was talk of a patriotic initiative or a conspiracy but that it could never be verified.

The fact is that South Africa ended up taking the title. “They won because they wanted it more strongly, because of the great responsibility they felt towards their nation and towards Mandela,” says Carlin.. The game ended 15-12, without a single try, and with Joel Stransky and Andrew Mehrtens scoring all the points for their respective teams. Many remember James Small grabbing Lomu by the neck in every throw. “When he knocked him down on the first play they saw that Lomu was not Superman,” reveals Carlin.

The real Superman of that story was prisoner number 46664. The one who wanted to make rugby the glue of a country. Thus, that final, that victory, achieves what Mandela had been looking for since the beginning of the championship. «It absolutely achieves its political purpose. There was tremendous euphoria, whites and blacks throughout the country celebrating equally,” says Carlin. What was a blessing for more than 40 million people, was a curse for seven protagonists of that match.