Raymond Verheijen’s Football Periodisation: Fitness Without Fitness Training

The Core Idea: What Football Fitness Actually Is

Verheijen’s starting point is a definition. Traditional fitness coaches measure endurance, strength, and speed as isolated variables: oxygen uptake, vertical jump height, sprint times. Verheijen views this as the fundamental error.

Football fitness is the capacity to repeat football actions with high quality over and over again. Not running. Not jumping. Football actions: playing a pass, executing a tackle, making a run into depth, triggering a pressing trap. A player who still makes the same decision with the exact same technical execution in the 80th minute as in the 10th is fit. A player with outstanding laboratory test results who cannot do that is not.

From this premise follows Verheijen’s action model. Every football action comprises three steps:

1. Communication – the player perceives what teammates, opponents, and the ball are doing.

2. Decision – they select an action.

3. Execution – they execute it.

Fatigue impairs all three stages. A tired player takes in less information, makes poorer decisions, and executes with less precision. Anyone who only trains execution – the legs – is training merely one-third of the equation. Football fitness must therefore be trained in contexts that demand all three steps simultaneously: in training games.

Up to this point, his conclusion mirrors Frade’s. The divergence begins right here.

The Four Fitness Dimensions

Verheijen breaks football fitness down into four dimensions that differ physiologically and therefore require distinct training methods:

1. Explosiveness. The ability to execute a single football action with maximum intensity – a sprint, a duel, a sharp change of direction. Physiologically: explosive power, rate of force development.

2. Maintaining explosiveness across many actions. The capacity to sustain the quality of actions across the full 90 minutes. The player who still has the same burst in the 85th minute as in the 5th.

3. Recovery between actions. How quickly a player is ready for the next action following an intense effort. In football, only seconds often separate two sprints. Players who recover faster can sprint more frequently.

4. Recovery between series. How quickly a player recovers after a series of intense actions – such as an attacking phase involving multiple sprints – to be ready for the next sequence.

Each dimension corresponds to a specific type of training game. This represents the core of Verheijen’s work and his point of departure from Frade: he defines precisely which training game develops which dimension.

Pitch size governs intensity. A small pitch with few players generates frequent actions and high explosiveness. A large pitch with many players demands longer running distances, building endurance and rhythm. The coach adjusts the training game just as a fitness trainer sets a treadmill – except the player is playing football throughout.

Weekly Planning

Verheijen structures not just the single week, but entire seasons into multi-week cycles where the dimensions build systematically upon one another. Simplified: first recovery between series, then maintaining explosiveness, then explosiveness itself. Large games before small ones. Volume before intensity.

Within any given week, he follows rules derived directly from recovery physiology:

Following a match, the body requires roughly 48 hours to recover fully. Training on the day after a match is either strictly regenerative or does not take place at all. Intensive training begins on the second day after the match at the earliest.

Prior to a match, the body needs roughly 48 hours following the final intensive session. The day before a match is kept short and explosive, avoiding fatigue.

Two intensive sessions in a row produce fatigue that accumulates. Verheijen refers to this as accumulated fatigue: a player who continually enters sessions without having fully recovered slows down over weeks without noticing it – until an injury strikes.

For a schedule with one match per week, this yields a structure resembling the morphocycle of Tactical Periodisation, yet grounded in physiological principles: Sunday match, Monday off or recovery, Tuesday off or light, Wednesday and Thursday intensive focusing on distinct dimensions, Friday short and explosive, Saturday activation.

With two matches per week, this condenses to the bare minimum: recovery, one day of preparation, match. Verheijen has repeatedly demonstrated that teams facing mid-week fixtures can barely train during the season – and that any attempt to push through regardless inevitably produces injuries.

The Critique of Overloading

Verheijen’s most prominent stance is his sustained critique of what he classifies as overloading. This centres on two main practices.

Excessive volume during pre-season. Verheijen has repeatedly argued that clubs using double sessions and immense running volumes in the summer suffer significantly more muscle injuries come autumn. His reasoning: the physical foundation laid down by coaches like Klopp or Gasperini in summer is not a foundation at all, but an upfront mortgage. The body must pay it off once the cumulative demands of competitive fixtures mount.

Insufficient recovery during the season. Coaches who respond to defeats with extra training, schedule two intensive days back-to-back, or run conditioning drills the day after a match – all of them, according to Verheijen, build accumulated fatigue. His formula: less is more. A fresh side will win more matches than one that is overtrained.

This critique has sparked fierce debates. He publicly attributed Guardiola’s injury crisis at Bayern Munich in 2013 and 2014 to training methodology, criticised Wenger’s Arsenal over several years, and challenged Klopp using injury frequency statistics. Most affected managers chose not to reply or dismissed Verheijen as an outsider. Yet the conversation he sparked has fundamentally influenced modern sports science: workload management relative to the preceding week is now universally accepted practice.

Verheijen and Frade: A Comparison

Both reject isolated fitness running. Both train physical conditioning purely through training games. Both structure the week with days governed by distinct physiological or tactical dominants. Nevertheless, their core foundations remain fundamentally distinct.

For coaches, this distinction carries direct practical consequences: Frade requires you to develop a overarching tactical philosophy and deduce everything from it. Verheijen expects you to understand the exact training effect of each game format and design the training week accordingly. Those who master both design games around their tactical philosophy while sizing the pitch according to the target fitness dimension. In elite football, this combined approach is precisely what top sides practise.

Criticisms of Verheijen

The tone. Verheijen’s public broadsides have frequently drawn more attention to his personality than to his methodology. Many coaches reject him out of hand without ever studying his model. While this is a dilemma of his own making, it has hindered the wider adoption of his principles.

Oversimplification. Verheijen’s 48-hour rules and fitness dimensions are intuitive, but human physiology is inherently more complex. Individual recovery profiles vary widely, and rigid rules cannot fit every athlete perfectly. Verheijen readily acknowledges this, yet coaching courses often boil down to rigid adherence to these baseline guidelines.

The sprinting question. As with Frade, questions remain as to whether training games alone adequately replicate peak sprint velocity. Verheijen relies on small-sided games to produce explosiveness, but whether players hit genuine maximum speed in these contexts remains contentious in sports science research – as outlined in our piece on conditioning without the ball. Consequently, many clubs supplement sessions with isolated, targeted sprint exposures, which fall outside Verheijen’s standard framework.

Empirical evidence for his overloading hypotheses. Verheijen’s accusations towards specific managers rely heavily on public injury counts that may stem from multiple contributing factors. While the link between gruelling pre-season workloads and autumn soft-tissue injuries is physiologically plausible, it is not as unequivocal as his public commentary suggests.

Absence of a game model. Verheijen’s method provides no blueprint for how a team should play. It categorises training games strictly by physical stimulus, not by tactical intent. A coach implementing only Verheijen’s model develops an exceptionally fit side devoid of a tactical identity. That tactical void is precisely what Frade’s methodology addresses.

Application: What You Can Adopt

This section represents our practical interpretation.

For grassroots and academy coaches, Verheijen offers the most accessible periodisation model available, providing clear guidelines that can be applied effectively without an academic degree in sports science.

Think in Actions, Not in Kilometres

Your side is not fit simply because they can run 10 kilometres. They are fit when your centre-back still delivers the correct penetrating pass in the 85th minute. After every match, avoid asking simply whether the team tired; examine which actions deteriorated: decisions, duels, or explosive sprints. That analysis tells you exactly which dimension is lacking.

Use Pitch Size as Your Primary Dial

Small pitch, few players: explosiveness. Large pitch, many players: endurance and match rhythm. This is the simplest lever in training session design, and it costs nothing. If your squad fades in the closing stages of matches, integrate larger game formats. If they are coming off second best in physical duels, prioritise smaller ones.

Two Sessions, Two Dimensions

For a detailed breakdown of how to structure a full training week, explore our guide to planning football training.

If you train on Tuesdays and Thursdays with a match on Saturday: Tuesday should be large and long – training recovery between series and match rhythm. Thursday should be small and explosive – short, sharp, and punctuated by generous rest intervals to ensure your squad remains entirely fresh for Saturday. This adapts Verheijen’s 48-hour principle directly to the amateur game, cutting squarely against the common habit of running punishing sessions on Thursday nights.

Keep the Day After the Match Free

If your team plays on Sunday, Monday should never be an intensive training day. If pitch allocation forces you to train on Monday, keep it gentle, brief, ball-oriented, and entirely free of physical challenges. Anything more simply layers on accumulated fatigue.

Never Train Harder as Punishment for Defeat

This is often the hardest rule to honour. The gut instinct following a dismal performance is to punish the squad through sheer volume. Verheijen warns that this simply guarantees the next poor display. A beaten team requires clarity and physical freshness, not extra laps around the pitch.

Pre-Season Without a Mortgage

Four weeks of pre-season at two sessions per week amounts to eight sessions in total. Verheijen’s logic for this reality: begin with large-sided games, transition to medium formats, and finish with small-sided games. Prioritise volume before intensity. Skip isolated running drills, avoid double sessions, and never take your squad on training camps where they cram three weeks of training into three days.

Key Takeaways

• According to Verheijen, football fitness is the capacity to repeat high-quality football actions consistently – not arbitrary laboratory metrics. Every action involves communication, decision, and execution, and fatigue degrades all three.
• Four fitness dimensions – explosiveness, maintaining explosiveness, recovery between actions, and recovery between series – map to four distinct types of training games, regulated through pitch dimensions and player numbers.
• Weekly planning adheres strictly to recovery rules: 48 hours post-match, 48 hours pre-match, and never two intensive training days back-to-back.
• Verheijen’s critique of overloading – excessive pre-season volume and insufficient in-season recovery – has fundamentally shaped the modern debate around load management, even if his combative delivery drew criticism.
• Compared to Frade: physiological rather than systemic, highly structured rather than flexible, and devoid of a prescribed game model. The two approaches complement each other effectively.
• Practical takeaways: think in actions, utilise pitch dimensions as your intensity dial, plan two distinct dimensions across two weekly sessions, keep the day after matches free, avoid punishing defeats with extra running, and build your pre-season without taking on a physical mortgage.

When you plan your training week in Coach OS, you can assign each session its specific physical dimension – large and expansive on Tuesday, sharp and explosive on Thursday. Whether your squad arrives fresh on Saturday comes down to the quality of your planning, not the software you use.

Sources and Further Reading

• Raymond Verheijen: Football Periodisation: Part 1 – the foundation of the methodology.
• Raymond Verheijen: How Simple Can It Be? – the practical, accessible overview complete with coaching examples.
• World Football Academy: Course manuals and lecture series on football periodisation.
• Verheijen’s public analyses on injury incidence and training load, published across interviews and social media between 2012 and 2020.
• Our article on conditioning without the ball, exploring Verheijen’s position relative to Frade and contemporary sports science.

Note on sources: The description of this methodology is based on Verheijen’s published works. The mapping of training game formats to specific dimensions in the table serves as a practical simplification; Verheijen’s full framework provides more granular specifications regarding pitch dimensions, interval durations, and rest periods.