Mangala: "We need to be demanding of ourselves and try to win every game"

Eliaquim Mangala has been working hard over the summer break and at the start of preseason, in order to be in the best possible shape for the 2020/21 season. The Frenchman has also been engaging in one of his hobbies: Reading sports psychology books. On his listo ver the past few months has been ‘The Mindful Athlete. Secrets To Pure Performance’ by George Mumford, ‘Start With Why. How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action’ by Simon Sinek, and ‘Becoming Supernatural’ by Dr. Joe Dispenza.

The centre back took time out of his schedule to talk with VCF Media this week, chatting about the preseason so far.

“We have a good coach and a lot of young players from the youth system. We have to work hard and be ready. We have to be fit. It's a lot of work, but we have to be ready for the season,” he explained.

“The effort that we are putting in now is so that we can compete. That's why we are here. We will see. First of all we have to train well, rest up, eat and then compete. We know that last season was very difficult. We want to turn things around and the team have a good mentality for that. We are going to give everything to provide a little more joy to the fans, who are a bit sad at the moment. That's our responsibility.”

Mangala is always working on himself, and has introduced several new disciplines to his training regime to help him improve.

“Physically, I'm doing well. I've been working to be fit throughout the season, to be aggressive, to attack and to defend. I feel very good.

“Everybody has their own methods. I do yoga and qigong every day. It allows me to be more focused, because it's a lot slower and you learn a lot about yourself. It's good after training, which requires so much effort and uses a lot of muscle. It's also good on a mental level, because you need to relax physically and mentally. It makes me feel much better, and able to put in a lot more effort every day. For me, it's more a lifestyle than a short term objective.”

After the calm of yoga, a more aggressive approach will be required on the pitch.

“I think that now we have to compete and be aggressive, both in attack and defence. We need to find a balance and be well organised. We need to make the opposition suffer. We need to compete from the first minute to the last. We always need to be aggressive, and give our all -from the first minute to the last,” says Mangala, who hopes to get playing time this week against CD Castellón.

“We have a game on Saturday. Preseason is to see what kind of shape we're in, and I always say that training makes you better prepared for games. We need to be demanding of ourselves and try to win every game. We have to try to do things well, which is what we will do on Saturday.”