Soccer: Holiday job extends to Cup

Kenny McMillan, left, and Ricki Herbert. Photo / Supplied

Kenny McMillan, of Aston Villa and New Zealand, had an important job last weekend.

He was in Austria checking out four venues as potential bases for the All Whites during their altitude training camp on the eve of the World Cup.

If he recommended the wrong one, he was bound to hear about it from players. Keeping the players happy, McMillan says, is half his job.

The All Whites sports scientist is the guy who puts the players through their paces before and after a game or training sessions and who works closely with the medical staff to help a player recover from injury.

He worked tirelessly with Simon Elliott in the week before New Zealand's World Cup playoff against Bahrain in Wellington but, ultimately, it was in vain, as Elliott missed the match with a hip injury.

This is what McMillan does in his holidays. His day job is with Aston Villa in the English Premiership and he's also had a season at Newcastle and seven with Scottish giants Celtic.

A large chunk of that time has been alongside Villa boss Martin O'Neill, who was previously at Celtic.

It has been his experiences with the All Whites, however, which figure highly in his memory banks and also in his thinking.

It was something that came about more by chance than anything else for the Glasgow-born 33-year-old.

"After a few years at Celtic, I was getting a little stale and wanted to do something different," McMillan explains.

"I was prepared to move on but they arranged a sabbatical for me for a year in New Zealand and I worked for the New Zealand Knights [in the A-League] in 2005 and 2006.

"I never guessed it would lead to the chance to work with a national team."

Last May, he received an email from All Whites coach Ricki Herbert and physiotherapist Roland Jeffery asking if he was available or knew of someone who could help them at last June's Confederations Cup.

It was last minute but McMillan jumped at the chance to work with a national team, even though it was during his holidays.

Herbert was clearly happy with McMillan's work and asked him to stay on for the rest of the World Cup qualifiers. That meant, of course, the two-legged playoff with Bahrain.

"I have watched a lot of big games with Aston Villa and Celtic - Scottish Cup and European cup finals," McMillan says.

"But that last five or 10 minutes against Bahrain was the worst ever. It was just horrible. It's so nerve-racking when you are involved with a side and things can change in an instant. It meant so much to me."

It meant he was also off to the World Cup.

Sports science is little-understood. In years gone by, a football warm-up might have involved a jog, stretching and shots at goal. A cool-down was making sure the beer was cold enough.

These days, as the name suggests, it is a science.

"It's all very well knowing the science but you have to apply it," says McMillan, whose PhD looked at the effects of endurance training for football players.

"You also have to have the right personality to work with football players because some can be quite difficult. A lot of the time it's about keeping them happy.

"Warm-ups have completely changed in the last five years but there's limited stuff you can do. Some fitness coaches can do too much on match day.

"For me, a warm-up is quite simple. It's about getting the players with footballs as quickly as possible because they need to get used to the pitch and conditions. After all, it's their game."