LDB Special – Interview with coach Rodrigo Galego

Just days before the start of the biggest youth basketball competition in Brazil, the coach of Flamengo's U20 team speaks exclusively to the official website.

By Raiana Monteiro - in 15/07/2019 às 13:48

From July 24th to 30th, Clube de Regatas do Flamengo will host Group B of the first stage of the Brazilian Interclub Championship - Basketball Development League (LDB). The competition features 13 teams competing for eight spots in the final after two group stages.

Flamengo will host the matches, which will be held at the Tijuca Tennis Club gymnasium. Flamengo, Maringá, Basquete Cearense, União Corinthians, Pinheiros, and São José will be competing at the Rio stadium. Also completing the competition, playing simultaneously in the Rio stage, are Curitiba Basquetebol, Coritiba Monster, Minas Tênis Clube, Paulistano, Sesi Franca, Corinthians, and Praia Clube, in matches to be held in Paraná.

Hired four months ago by Mais Querido, Rodrigo Galego, the coach of the red-and-black U-20 team, spoke exclusively to the CRF's official website. Read below.

You've been at Flamengo for just over four months. What was it like working with the U-20 squad and the other professionals on the Mais Querido multidisciplinary team?

"It was a very interesting first impression. I arrived after Carnival, in March, so in February, Igor (Meletti), the U17 coach, and Rafael (Bernardelli), the youth team's physical trainer, had already begun technical and physical training with the kids. So I was able to take the next step, implementing the information I believe in. Gustavo (De Conti) brought me some ideas he wants to see from the adult team, but at the same time, he gave me a lot of freedom in my application. I always shared with him what I wanted to do, and he always assured me that I would manage the team the way I believed was right. This was very important to me upon my arrival. It gave me a lot of confidence to think that people brought me to Flamengo because they trust my work.

As the last category of the youth team, how similar is the U20 training methodology to that of the club's main team? What has the preparation for the LDB been like?

"So... we leverage some adult concepts, as it's the last category, and the concept has to be really close, but it doesn't have to be identical. The work has to be adapted to the players you have. We did some interesting preparation this year, which involved competing in adult competitions. We competed in the LSB (Super Basketball League), an amateur basketball league in Rio de Janeiro with many teams. We often face amateur players or players who have retired but have adult experience. There's not that youthful anxiety about getting it right, that pressure, so you're facing experienced players who play a little harder. This provides a grounding, a really cool experience for the athletes."

"We're playing in the LSB, we're also playing in the Rio de Janeiro adult tournament—the Cariocão—and we're participating in the Rio U19 championship. These competitions have helped me get to know the players, understand them in unfavorable situations, sometimes in difficult games, but also in easy ones. When we're winning easily, how each player behaves, if they continue to push themselves to do their best..."

So do you consider this strategy of participating in these adult tournaments in Rio de Janeiro in the pre-season to be successful?

"It's impressive to see how engaged people are with Flamengo's basketball project. Sometimes a heavier adult athlete bumps into a young player and he falls, and the player immediately apologizes, saying he knows we're going to play in the LDB, that we're preparing for the competition... It's really cool to represent Rio de Janeiro in this work. If we're successful in the LDB and in our work as a whole, if we stand out nationally, it's Rio de Janeiro basketball, you know? It's the referees who oversaw the games and guided the athletes precisely, in a formative way; it's the opponents who played hard; it's the rivals from other clubs who played hard against us, but who also expect the best from us. It's very positive to be able to represent the state of Rio de Janeiro, the place where I was born, for a sport; it's something that also motivates me every day to do this work at Flamengo."

How did the team's formation for the competition work? We had the arrival of athletes Pedro Nunes and Matheus Maciel up until last week... How do you fit everything together, having initially loaned athletes to the adult NBB 11 and now with new young players on the roster?

"Along the way, over these four months, some pieces arrived due to some things I'd already discussed with Diego (Jeleilate), regarding the team's needs. We only trained for one period. I had planned to work two periods, but there was a final stretch for the adult team, which also took up some of my time, as I was acting as second assistant, but also for some athletes who were working with the adult team. Despite this, I believe we prepared very well. We're making final adjustments with the new players, fine-tuning the small details. We believe we'll start well. Of course, we'll never reach 100% in the competition, but we try to reach that 70% to have that ballast for growth in the competition. In short, it was a good, well-done, well-organized preparation, designed by the club's physical department, the club's medical department, and the technical/tactical department that Igor and I put together."

Gustavo De Conti and Diego Jeleilate's philosophy is one of complete integration between the adult and youth teams. What will your work with the U20 team and your role in this transition process be like?

Anyone who knows Diego and Gustavo knows they are professionals who place a high value on the youth team and enjoy developing and developing young athletes. This is something I also identify with deeply, because although I've left the youth team behind for the last five or six years and worked with adult teams, which is my life project: being a professional basketball coach and making a living from it, the teams I worked with were youth teams. They came up through the youth ranks with me. This transition from the lower ranks to the beginning of an adult career is something I'm very used to, so that's why I think I fit so well into this process that Flamengo is trying to put together. We know it can be exhausting for the athletes at times, but they're also very aware that it's a phase, and that they're full of energy. If you ask them, they'll say they wouldn't trade this chance to be part of the adult team for anything, to play alongside a championship team, as they did once again in the NBB, and to be a player striving to be a star in the youth ranks, in my case, the U-19s and Under-20.”

"This upcoming season, we're bringing in some reinforcements who come from a different perspective. They're not coming to play for the youth team and perhaps see if they can help out in the adult team. They're coming to the adult team. They're coming to be part of the adult squad, but as athletes who can also contribute to our youth team."

You've shown yourself to be very interested in the work Gustavo and Fernando Pereira (assistant coach) have been doing since your arrival, including closely observing the timeouts during the last NBB tournament. What do you take away from this experience, this exchange of knowledge?

"I've never worked on a professional team. My teams were amateurs trying to become professional. However, I've worked with good clubs in Brazil, watching training sessions. I know great coaches in Brazil because I went there and watched their training sessions... but being on the bench during a timeout and seeing what the coach decides at that moment is an experience I've never had in my life at this level, at the top of the pyramid."

"I really like this idea of language, of truly effective communication. What you can convey in a minute, what the key words are, and being able to observe this was a way to understand Gustavo's entire work. Understanding how he drives the team, how he sees the game, was incredibly enriching for me. The idea was to get closer, to understand, to understand what they were working on, what they were trying to demand of the players at each moment, and, most importantly, how they changed the pace of the game, the tactics. This was incredibly valuable for me."

"I'm a big fan of Gustavo's work; he knows that. I've had the pleasure of facing him in amateur competitions in previous years, and now working with him, participating in training sessions, answering questions, and having the option to express my opinion, has been a great learning experience. Many of the things I've already learned from him are things I've already incorporated into my work. So that's more or less the idea."

And what are the next steps for Flamengo's Under-20 Category?

"It's only four months. We still have a series of processes to evolve, but I'm very happy to see the small advances we're already noticing, individual behavioral ones, but which we'll eventually reap collectively. Furthermore, once again, being well-received with the trust I've had from Diego, Gustavo, Fernando, and the team leading the adult team... Handing me such a high-quality squad and sharing their needs with me, sharing their goals, but at the same time giving me the freedom to say, 'Man, we know you can handle this and do it well. I want you to give me information on what's missing, what we can do more.' Normally, everything I've been bringing to Flamengo internally, the response is: 'Let's do it.' So, it's a very rich, very important moment, and I think we can turn a corner, build a history at Flamengo, not just in the adult team, which is already consolidated, but also building at the grassroots level as athlete trainers, which I think can become a national benchmark." and maybe even in America.”