Sito Alonso pampers his players in his first week without UCAM games in between
Five games in twelve days to kick off 2023 and play games during the week for a whole month. Until now. Quickly resolving the ‘play-in’ of access to the ‘top 16’ of the Champions League has brought the best prize Sito Alonso’s men could aim for, apart from the standings themselves, which is to give the body a break to give. Combining two leagues for teams without big budgets is quite a challenge in the Endesa League, which is still, and comfortably, the top domestic league in Europe.
The quality that the Endesa League demands from its teams ensures that certain competitive advantage over other foreign teams, but with a dangerous ‘B-side’. And it is that not everyone goes to the double league with full guarantees. That is, with squads with no risky signings and the certainty of going and finding in the mid-season market the piece that replaces an injured or asset that came out frogged.
So there are parts of the season that are more challenging than others. UCAM has just left the one with the greatest physical strain so far, with a European ‘top 16’, but without Copa del Rey, and faces Saturday’s game in Fuenlabrada with the first week without intermediate games since mid-December.
Of the four players who play the most minutes at UCAM, three are over thirty (Radovic, Anderson and McFadden). About twenty minutes per game, also two others who have been counting their years for a long time with a 3 at the start (Rojas and Bellas). The wear and tear is real, appreciating the lack of gas for Sito Alonso’s men in the last two games of the Endesa League. In Bilbao they were never at the energy level of the Basques; against Barça, the game ended up being long for a team that had emptied itself in a very demanding draw against Pinar as it kept alive in Europe.
That is why the UCAM is taking it easy this week. To give the best possible release at the home of the bottom club, you need to regenerate after playing five matches in a 12-day hiatus. After Sunday’s game against Barça, the UCAM players have had two days off in a row (Monday and Tuesday) and will only train hard today and tomorrow to leave for Fuenlabrada on Friday.
Source: La Verdad
I am Shawn Partain, a journalist and content creator working for the Today Times Live. I specialize in sports journalism, writing articles that cover major sporting events and news stories. With a passion for storytelling and an eye for detail, I strive to be accurate and insightful in my work.
