Barcelona reshapes fitness department as Julio Tous moves aside

Barcelona is not treating Julio Tous’ exit from the first-team fitness hierarchy as a routine reshuffle. By moving him into academy work and preparing Holger Broich to take over the top physical-preparation role, the club is signaling a deeper review of how it handles conditioning, injury prevention and workload control ahead of the 2026/27 campaign.

That matters because the next cycle starts fast. Barcelona’s preseason is set to begin on July 13 with the usual medical check-ups and physical tests, before the squad shifts into a training block at St. George’s Park in England from July 27 to August 3. If the club has changed the structure now, it expects the first tests of that new setup to arrive immediately, in how players respond to screening, loading and recovery over those first two weeks.

The move also undercuts a hierarchy Barcelona itself promoted not long ago. When Hansi Flick arrived in 2024, the club presented Tous, Pepe Conde, Rafa Maldonado and Germán Fernández as the new physical staff, with the official staff photo taken at the Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper on July 13, 2024. In August 2024, Barcelona described Tous as the new head fitness coach for the first team, and the club framed the project as a reset in how the squad would be prepared physically. Tous had already returned to the club in April 2024, when he and Raúl Martínez were added to Xavi’s staff as strength and preparation specialists after Tous’ earlier spell at Barcelona in 2004 and his departure in June 2022.

The reassignment suggests the club is now weighing whether last season’s model, even with its praised neuromuscular approach, delivered the right balance between intensity, durability and control. Reports in March 2025 credited Tous’ methods with reducing injuries and described him as the figure who changed everything around the club. In April 2025, Flick was said to value the freedom given to Tous, Conde, Maldonado and Fernández. Yet the debate around Marc ter Stegen’s recovery in June 2025, when Tous discussed an earlier attempt to push the goalkeeper back, showed how central the department had become to decisions on availability and return-to-play timing.

The practical question now is simple: will the new setup produce cleaner preseason indicators? Barcelona will want to see players clear July 13 testing without setbacks, complete the England stage without an unusual run of muscle issues, and enter the final week of preseason with workloads rising instead of being interrupted. If that happens, the club will have evidence that this was a structural correction, not just a change of names.