The clue was in the legs. Across a pre-season that ended with a comfortable 3-0 win at Schalke, Real Madrid’s players have looked, at moments, oddly heavy — sharp in spells, then flat, with minutes shared out far more evenly than a manager would normally choose a week before a LaLiga opener. The explanation, according to the people around the first team, is not a fitness problem. It is the fitness plan.
The Mourinho training regime at Valdebebas has been rebuilt from the first week, and the squad is still catching up with it. Double sessions, a controlled diet and a level of daily demand the dressing room had drifted away from: this is the part of José Mourinho’s second spell that will not show up in a highlight reel, and it may be the part that decides the season.
Back to two sessions a day
As reported by Guillermo Rai of The Athletic, relayed by Madrid Universal, sources close to the technical staff describe the opening weeks of Mourinho’s return as hard going. The emphasis has been on double training sessions, and the jump from low-intensity work to two high-intensity blocks in a day has been a difficult adjustment. Members of the staff, the same report says, point to exactly that change as the reason players have looked fatigued in pre-season matches.
The Spanish reading is the same. Bernabéu Digital, citing AS, report that Mourinho found habits at the club he intends to change, and that physical preparation and nutrition were the two he went at first. Menus are now structured by a nutritionist. The workload has been raised deliberately so that the whole squad reaches competitive rhythm as early as possible, which is also why Mourinho has spread his minutes so widely in friendlies rather than settling on an eleven.
Why the club let him do it
None of this happens without authority, and Mourinho has been given an unusual amount of it. The Athletic’s reporting, via Madrid Universal, describes a project handed over almost entirely: every arrival needs his green light, every departure his sanction, and the planning of training, recovery work and squad rules sits with him along with full tactical freedom. Florentino Pérez has backed him without hedging.
That matters because physical preparation is precisely where Madrid have fallen behind. The last two seasons were a story of muscle injuries, congested calendars and a squad that too often finished games looking second to the ball. Discipline has been the through-line of Mourinho’s public messaging since June — Thibaut Courtois spoke about the new standards in July — and the training ground is where a message like that is either enforced or quietly abandoned.
The trade-off Madrid are accepting
The short-term cost is visible. A heavier August means tired legs in friendlies and, on the evidence of this pre-season, a manager who cannot yet judge his best side at full speed. Endrick’s muscle overload before the Schalke trip was a reminder that loading a squad hard carries risk, even if nobody has linked the two, and Madrid start the season with Rodrygo out long term. The bet is that the pay-off arrives later: fewer soft-tissue problems in the winter, more energy in the games that decide trophies.
It is a bet that will take months to settle, and the first instalment falls due on Saturday at Espanyol. Thibaut Courtois said this week that he sees a lot of commitment in the group and that everyone wants a serious season. Madristas have heard promises of intensity before; what is different this time is that the promise is being made in double sessions rather than in press conferences. If Real Madrid look fresher in February than they did last February, this quiet August is where it started.
