Albert Capellas: Former Barca & BVB coach on 'things you never learn in books'

Albert Capellas is recalling his time as Peter Bosz’ assistant at Vitesse. “We would spend our afternoons just talking about the game,” he tells Sky Sports. Capellas wanted to know all about Dutch football. Bosz would want to hear stories about Barcelona.

Capellas had worked at La Masia, Barcelona's academy, for over a decade, coaching Andres Iniesta, among others. After Vitesse, he would go on to be Bosz' assistant at Borussia Dortmund. By then, the pair had devised their own code words for the game.

"I know he is still doing it now. We were trying to create a language to help the players to understand concepts as quickly as possible. For example, we had the five-second rule. When you say five-second rule, every player on the pitch knows what it means."

The idea was to win the ball back as quickly as possible. "Peter says it is now a three-second rule because he wants the pressure to be even quicker." The concept of 'klein' was another favourite - squeezing up the pitch once a longer ball had been played.

"Then there was the three-metre rule if they had chance to play a ball in behind. If there is no pressure on the ball, drop three metres. If they do not play a long ball, up three metres again. With that, you can solve a problem in one second. We worked on it a lot.

"You cannot imagine how many afternoons we discussed this. How can we say this to the players? How can we train it? I loved it and I know that he loved it as well. He is a fantastic coach." Bosz is showing that now having taken PSV to the top of the Eredivisie.

Capellas, 56, took different path as head coach of FC Midtjylland in Denmark before feeling the emotional pull of a return to Barcelona's academy. He describes Bosz as a coach who has inspired him but