How to "fix" players who missed pre-season

[Kawee]

Just had a summer where there were EURO Championship, Copa America, followerd immediately by Olympics, so almost half my squad actually missed the entire pre-season. I've noticed that those that didn't go through 5 weeks worth of hell in the pre-season are "broken" in the sense that their fitness levels drop drastically in each match, and takes longer to recover. First of all, is this a coincidence, or is there an actual relationship between missing pre-season and fitness level throughout the season. I was hoping that since they were getting like almost 10 extra games during the summer tournaments, that would sort of act as their pre-season.

If missing all that physical training during the pre-season has a season-long effect on these players, is there anything I can do to fix them? I gave each of them an extra week of holiday after they returned from international duty but that didn't seem to do anything. I can't find any option to individually place them in pre-season training regime either.

[s0ni42]

I think you are overthinking it. I think the extra week off is fine, but not required. Just treat it like coming off an injury. Build their match fitness steadily. Usually there is an early term international break as well that you could recall them from international and have a mini-boot camp if you feel it is needed

[04texag]

I'm actually going through this right now, so timely thread. Good tips.

One thing that sucks though, is I wanted to use this preseason to test out a new signing who I'm excited about, but he's off dominating the olympics.