Arnie fits the bill

IF ARNALDO Longaretti had been unveiled to the world's press as Blackburn Rovers' new Italian striker, not a single hack or snapper in the Ewood Media Theatre would have batted an eyelid.

He sounds just about right and most certainly looks the part. Add to that a career including spells with Verona, Atalanta and Piacenza...

The fact that he's 42, only played as a professional for a year and then as a defender may though have caused a few doubts!

Arnaldo is Rovers' fitness guru.

If you reckon that the players are looking leaner and meaner, jumping higher and running faster since the dawn of the current season then Arnaldo is the man upon who to heap at least some of the credit.

He takes his role as fitness coach deadly serious - if his handshake is any guide then I daresay his training sessions can be arduous, heart-pumping affairs.

Football approaching the Millennium is ever advancing in terms of technical and tactical awareness. No one is more on the ball in this regard than Roy Hodgson and Arnaldo was one of his first backroom targets.

He recruited a perfectionist too. Dedicated to his chosen career and constantly striving to unearth the ultimate fitness regime.

"It is difficult for me to explain in detail the many different ways we look at fitness training. It involves strength and endurance, brings in explosive power and eye-foot co-ordination work, sessions on the pitch and in the gymnasium and getting players to fully understand all the benefits.

"It is technical, we plan the training weeks ahead when possible, but not necessarily always hard to follow. It is important that football players learn to run not only with their legs, but with their heads. "To stay at the top in professional sport requires dedication and care of the body. Warming up has always been a part of football life. Warming down is equally vital in helping fitness levels and avoiding injury. That has been the way in Italy and across Europe for many years, but not until recently in England.

"We try psychokinetic methods too - using colour to help co-ordination. To give you an example we will ask the players to form a square wearing different colours.

"At first we will ask the blues to pass balls to the blues and the whites to the whites and so on, using their hands.

"Then we will break to do a little stretching before returning to ask the blues to pass to the white and the whites to pass to the greens. Then we will do a little more stretching before transferring the action to the feet and quicken the pace. It may sound simple, but it requires great concentration."

"My first responsibility is to the first team, but I get involved with all the players and I must say a thank you to them all for the way they have accepted me and my ideas here."

So much so that when Kevin Gallacher and Billy McKinlay were recently on an extended away trip with Scotland in France, Arnaldo was on the telephone to pass on a special programme to follow.

Arnaldo spent the duration of our interview with a huge dossier on his lap - most of the words, although in English, might as well have been in Italian, as far as the interview was concerned.

This is a man with a huge appetite for work and for learning.

He jacked in as "a not so good football player" when he was 29 to study fitness. Thirteen years on and the studying hasn't stopped. Born in the small town of Bergamo - 50 miles from Milan - he played his only season as a pro with a Third Division outfit called Ospitaletto.

"I was an athletic kind of player and although I did not play too good I did enjoy the training. I decided to finish my career and spent time on a course run by the Italian Football Federation. I also went to university before getting my chance in the professional game with Atalanta (five years) and later Verona and Piacenza.

"I very nearly went to Inter Milan with Roy Hodgson, but circumstances prevented it from happening. When Roy asked me to come here I was delighted to accept.

"I watched the English way of playing when I was a boy and liked it very much. It is different to Italy, more about power and strength and perhaps not quite so tactical. My job here is very good and the more I see and the more I like."

Arnaldo's family home remains in Italy - close to the town of his birth. He is married to Aderita and has a three-year-old toddler, Simone.

"Many times I go home for the weekend. But I am now based in the Ribble Valley, near Clitheroe. You get homesick from time to time, but that is only natural.

"Possibly next season we will try to bring the family over on a full-time basis - they have already visited and they like it too."

Arnaldo tries to have a regular word with some of the Italian players in the English game - today's Ewood date with Chelsea providing an obvious opportunity - and he recently spent a flight back home chatting with Gianluca Vialli.

Away from teaching and from practising what he teaches, Arnaldo likes to settle down to some good music with a hefty book at hand - and if the contents concentrate on mind and body matters then so much the better.

I got the impression that to try and help me understand his work more fully he would be willing to let me borrow his bible.

Had he passed it across I would have passed it back, quickly but politely - see, you can soon get the hang of this co-ordination thing.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.