Decoding Game Plan

We hit the gym with three midfielders and find out what makes a star footballer fit and strong.

- Mehul Reuben Das

Ask any football enthusiast what their favourite playing position is and the answer will be striker. But ask a professional the same question, and they will tell you that a midfielder is the most integral player in any set up. They are a hybrid between a defender and an attacker, capable of sitting well in both these roles. Strong midfielders, then, are the key to a team’s success.

Adil Khan, Jonathan Vila and Marko Stankovic are three of FC Pune City’s finest midfielders. One would think that their training regime and diet would be almost identical, given that they play very similar roles. As midfielders then, they need to be agile, fast and firm in order to stop the opposing defense from ruining chances that their forwards create to score a goal. However, when they hit the gym, their training regimes could not be any different.

An Austrian by birth, Marko Stankovic not only needs to face a tough opposition, but the heat and humidity of the subcontinent. “I have been practicing and playing in minus nine degrees all my life. Now playing in 35 or 40 degrees has certainly not been easy. But I acclimatised.”