Every country will prepare for the Euros differently, but this is quite out there.
Every new and adventurous training drill is looked on with suspicion by those who are too afraid to try new things, but eventually what was once strange, becomes the ordinary.
Perhaps that will be the case for North Macedonia with their very interesting training drill that seems to be focusing on… well, we’re not sure.
The egg and spoon race comes to mind, but the more you watch it the more you realise the drill works on more things than one might think.
🇲🇰 North Macedonia training, cone race edition 😀@ffmmkd | #EURO2020 pic.twitter.com/wuJjTk3EaP
— UEFA EURO 2024 (@EURO2024) June 17, 2021
Co-ordination, reflexes, teamwork, problem solving, communication – these are all things that are needed to perform this drill successfully. You can see that the players run in pairs, so they have to be in sync with one another and their timing has to be close to perfect to get the ball from cone to cone.
The added stipulation of it being a race means that although caution and balance is key, you are still under pressure to perform the task at speed and with urgency so that your group will finish ahead of the other.
A far more likely scenario is that we are reading too much into this and that it is simply a drill that the players do at the end of training for a bit of craic and team bonding.
However, if North Macedonia were to defy the odds and progress in this tournament then don’t be surprised if you end up seeing Kylian Mbappé racing Paul Pogba at France’s next training session.
