José Mourinho has moved to put a workload-management plan in place at Real Madrid, creating a system for handling the physical workloads of the club’s players.
How the plan works
Mourinho has built the plan around close monitoring of minutes, organised rest periods and workloads tailored to each player’s needs. The strategy includes extra rest days and individual measures to help players recover their physical and mental energy.
Güler and Tchouaméni given extra recovery time
Arda Güler and Aurélien Tchouaméni were the latest examples of the policy. The technical staff gave both players extra time to recover after they had accumulated heavy minutes in high-tempo, physically demanding matches.
Working with the club’s various departments, Mourinho tracks minutes and fatigue levels and adjusts physical programmes to suit individual and collective circumstances.
The Paris Saint-Germain reference
Luis Enrique has recently adopted a policy for managing the minutes of his key players in the French league. In the domestic competition, Vitinha played 2,121 minutes, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia played 1,483, Achraf Hakimi played 1,374, João Neves played 1,287, Fabián Ruiz played 1,129 and Ousmane Dembélé played 1,062.
Vitinha featured in 69.3% of the total possible minutes, while Ousmane Dembélé’s share was 34.7% and Fabián Ruiz’s was 36%.
Managing minutes across LaLiga
Mourinho wants to create his own version of the Paris Saint-Germain blueprint by managing workloads individually, using strategic rest periods and distributing minutes more evenly across LaLiga.
