The weekly microcycle in football: how load is distributed

The shape, day by day

The day after the match is regenerative for those who played, and it is usually the lightest of the week. Those who did not play do the opposite: they make up the load they did not accumulate, and that is the day they diverge most from the rest of the squad.

In the middle sit the demanding days, usually two, as far as possible from the last match and the next. And before playing, a short activation: the lowest bar of the week after the day off.

What almost nobody expects on seeing the numbers

That a training day outweighs the match. It happens often, and it is not an error: in a match eleven play ninety minutes and the rest come on for twenty or not at all, while twenty attend training. Squad load is intensity times minutes per head, not the intensity of the day.

So a team average on match day describes poorly what happened. Starters and substitutes lived two different weeks, and the average describes neither group.

What to check each week

Three things, none taking more than a minute. Whether the shape appeared: that the recovery day really was the lightest and the hard days actually hard. If not, the plan stayed on paper.

Whether the week was flat. Days that all look alike mean high monotony, usually from an accumulation of similar sessions rather than a decision.

And who fell well below the rest. Normally the substitutes who did not come on, and that is information for deciding whether to add work, not a figure to file away.