Why is the FIFA Virus affecting Barcelona so much?
The Catalans are being hit during this international break
Barcelona have been one of the club’s worst hit by the FIFA virus. They have suffered a lot of injuries during the international break - Araujo, Kounde, Frenkie de Jong and Memphis Depay all hurt on international duty.
Lluis Puig, coordinator of physiotherapy at Hospital del Esperit Sant, believes that it is an issue with various factors and analyses what happened for SPORT.
"There are multiple factors. The first is that their teams have an exhaustive control of workloads with specific and individual training. These players, when they go with the national teams, do more neutral training, which takes fewer factors into account; that's the first point", he explains.
"The second point is the change in routines. In their clubs they have breakfast together, there are more prevention sessions, more compensatory bodybuilding sessions and more individualised work depending on the position in which they play."
Puig recalls how this season Barça is doing a lot of individual work, where they work with daily data, and prevention is prioritised. In this sense, he remembers the case of Sergi Roberto - who came off immediately at the slightest problem.
At clubs, he highlights, the work is done over longer term, while national teams need an immediate performance in concrete windows. But there is one more factor, one he considers important.
"There are players who have one role in the team and another in the national team. And that includes their position or their status in the team. It can happen that the player plays in one position for the club and in a different one in the national team. But also that he is a starter in his team and in the national team he has to earn the position. Also if he is not a starter he might relax a bit in some controlling measures that he pays more attention to at his club.”
