The Athletic.

Hello and welcome to the TIFO football podcast. I'm John McKenzie, but I am not joined today

by my comrade in arms, Mike Zimmerman. But don't worry, that doesn't mean that you're getting

short change when it comes to today's episode. Because today I'm joined by

Sammy Lander, who is the next in a long line of specialist coaches that we've talked to on this

very podcast. Sammy is a substitutions coach, perhaps the first substitutions coach the world

has ever seen. And so today's episode is all about the role of substitutes, how coaches can

help prepare them to come on in games,

and the sort of upside that you should expect from employing a substitution coach.

Now, I'll be honest, I was sceptical at first, but Sammy won me around,

so let's just head over to that conversation now so that you can make your own minds up.

Sammy, it's great to have you here.

Thank you for coming in to record with me.

I'm delighted to be here, very excited to talk football and substitutions.

Yeah, I'm very excited to talk about substitutions because as I've just said before we started recording, recording substitutions things that people don't really talk about that much in football particularly from a

tactical point of view and you are the guy who you are the guy who does substitution tactics right

yeah that is me that's the way I like to yeah pigeon myself but no yeah it's an interesting area

I think it's very untouched I think that's why my role has come about,

because there's such a space for it to be developed,

and, you know, set-piece coaches are now becoming the norm.

You know, I know set-piece coaches in National League, League, too,

so what's the next place where you're going to get little advantages

...