Flick's Barça's recovery in three stages

BarcelonaBarça traveled to Villarreal, always a difficult ground, with their hearts heavy due to bad news. Andreas Christensen, the unexpected hero of Tuesday's challenging Copa del Rey match in Guadalajara, was once again facing setbacks. This time, the Danish defender, considered by the coaching staff to be the most complete center-back in the squad when fully fit, will be sidelined for approximately four months with a partial tear of the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. He will avoid surgery, but will most likely miss the decisive stretch of the season, during which he was also expected to prove himself in order to renew his contract, which expires on June 30. Besides Christensen, Hansi Flick also had to contend with the absence of Pedri González at La Cerámica, in this case due to muscle overload, the same reason given for Jules Koundé's substitution. at the end of the match against the yellows.

The match schedule is intense, the Barça squad is quite short on players, and it's very normal for muscles to feel the strain. However, aside from a clear improvement in results, Barça can celebrate that since the Clásico at the end of October at the Bernabéu, which left them five points behind Real Madrid in the La Liga standings, they have managed workloads better and prevented muscle injuries more efficiently, which have disappeared in the first third of the season.

The data is clear. In recent weeks, the team has gone from lamenting muscle tears of important players like Raphinha, Alejandro Balde, Fermín López, Robert Lewandowski, and Pedri himself, to mainly dealing with traumatic injuries such as Dani Olmo's dislocated shoulder and Christensen's. Ronald Araujo, out with mental health issues, is a separate case. During this time, it is true that the muscle discomfort has not subsided, but thestaff They were able to detect them in time to prevent them from developing into more serious injuries. This explains specific absences such as Pedri's against Villarreal, Lewandowski's against Osasuna, and Raphinha's against Betis. Prevention avoids headaches, although it's not infallible, as demonstrated by the fact that Fermín missed three matches between the end of November and the beginning of December due to a calf strain.

This shift in dynamics needs to be understood within the context of the restructuring of roles that has taken place in Flick's coaching staff since the international break in October. The catalyst was Raphinha's relapse before the Clásico at the Bernabéu. The Brazilian pushed himself to return against Real Madrid, suffered another injury, and this, coupled with other setbacks, led the dressing room to seek a return to familiar advice. In other words, the internal reshuffle resulted in Julio Tous stepping down from coordinating rehabilitation programs, a responsibility he had assumed in the summer in conjunction with the sporting committee. Tous has returned to focusing solely on his specialty, physical conditioning, and rehabilitation has been reinstated in the hands of veteran doctor Ricard Pruna and some of the professionals who remained with the team.staff Since the days of Xavi Hernández.

When not overdoing it is a good remedy

With the role reversal now established, the first injuries recovered using the new (or old) method have been those of Pedri and Raphinha. The ARA (Argentine Rehabilitation Agency) can explain some details of how these readaptations to high-level competition have been carried out. Aside from the fact that the return to training must be gradual and begin five to seven days before the player is officially cleared to play, it is important that the players know how to control their impulses and not underestimate the risk of relapse. In this regard, they receive guidelines on how to behave when they begin to subject themselves to more demanding workloads. The readaptation process consists of three phases measured in kilometers per hour of peak speed. In the first phase, the players know that their sprints should be between 25 and 28 km/h; in the second, they can operate within a range of 28 to 32 km/h; and in the third, when it is considered that performance can be at its maximum, the efforts can exceed 32 km/h. It's worth noting that the fastest players in La Liga, such as Vinícius (Real Madrid), Víctor Muñoz (Osasuna), and Javi Rueda (Celta Vigo), can reach speeds of up to 35 km/h in a single sprint. This three-stage recovery approach of Flick's Barça is another aspect that the German coach and his staff have managed to correct in time. There will be more injuries before the end of the season, but there will likely be fewer relapses caused by poor workload management.