Atletico de Kolkata Undergo Training in High-Altitude Spanish Town

Aiming to attain peak fitness ahead of the Indian Super League, Atletico de Kolkata's footballers are putting in the hard yards in a high-altitude province in Spain, where the likes of Luis Garcia, the team's marquee player, are bracing up for the gruelling event.

The training module has been designed to get the players in top physical shape to tackle the demanding ISL scheduled to be held from October 12-December 20.

The month-long training is being conducted at Los Angeles de San Rafael ground in El Espinar.

"This training is our primary measure towards building a team. The decision to train at a higher altitude would put the abilities of players under scrutiny and in the long run benefit the players to match pace and energy when they play in familiar conditions in India," said Antonio Lopez Habas, the team's head coach.

The training consists of specific exercises and players are practising ball coordination, energy and agility movements to keep the pace up for 90 minutes. Training also involves various ball works and building up the stamina with working groups and defensive tactical synchronisation.

"The technical aspect of the players would be scrutinised for the whole month in order to achieve their optimum potential. The efficiency of the training routine at an altitude would definitely be new to some of the players and they need to acclimatise to the conditions and push the extra mile to reach the targets," said physical coach Miguel Martinez.

"I will be setting short and long-term targets to make the program realistic and yet consistent and moderate specific weaknesses of the players," he added.

For the league's inaugural edition, Atletico de Kolkata bagged 14 players from India besides Spanish World Cupper Garcia and Borja Fernandes among others.