A professional footballer from 2004 to 2023, former goalkeeper Romain Salin had a rich career, notably marked by stints at Sporting Portugal between 2017 and 2019 and Stade Rennais from 2019 to 2023. Salin, who also represented Laval, Guingamp, and Lorient in France, played for nine seasons in the Portuguese Liga with both CS Maritimo and Rio, giving him ample time to notice the differences in goalkeeper training between the two countries: "What shocked me at first was that we worked much more in match situations in Portugal. When I arrived, we were already using video to study what the opponent was doing and we tried to adapt by finding situations that were similar to those we might encounter on weekends. At the time, in France, training sessions were more focused on specific work, and we mainly worked on the athletic aspect with a lot of plyometric exercises. This evolved during my last seasons at Rennes, but if I had to compare the two training methods, I would say that we were closer to match conditions and competition in Portugal."
Brief
Romain Salin spent his entire professional career as a goalkeeper between France and Portugal / ©Icon Sport