The biggest issue Barcelona faced last season was around the training ground.
Hansi Flick’s side successfully defended their Liga title and won the Supercopa de Espana in 2025-26. Even though they didn’t progress beyond the Champions League quarter-finals, losing to Atletico Madrid, the campaign was judged a success.
However, there were also major tensions between players and the fitness coaching team led by Julio Tous — as The Athletic exclusively revealed in November.
Barca have decided to act.
This week, the club announced the arrival of German fitness coach Benjamin Kugel, who will take up a role with the first team. The statement on Barcelona’s website was brief, but multiple sources have told The Athletic that Kugel will replace Tous.
Barca sources — speaking anonymously, like others consulted for this article, as they did not have permission to comment — also said head coach Hansi Flick raised the topic of last season’s fitness coaching problems during talks over his new contract until 2028, which he signed in May.
Multiple senior decision-makers at the club were initially reluctant to take Tous away from his duties with the first team, as they believed the problems were broader than him. But after assessing the situation and what all the sides involved thought, a decision was made — one that reflects Barca’s complete faith in Flick.
Benjamin Kugel has worked for various European sides, including PSV in 2022 (Photo Prestige/Soccrates/Getty Images)
Kugel, 46, worked with Flick in the German national team setup. Both were part of the squad that won the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, when Joachim Low was coach and Flick was assistant manager. Kugel also has extensive experience at club level, having worked with Werder Bremen, Koln, PSV and Benfica.
Tous will remain at Barca, but he will take up a role more focused on the club’s reserve and youth teams and other sporting sections. Rafa Maldonado and German Fernandez, who arrived in 2024 with Tous, will also move away from first-team duties. They are all under contract for another year.
When Tous, now 54, arrived two years ago, Flick had just been appointed as head coach. Barca wanted to revamp their fitness training department following concerns over the intensity levels under Xavi.
With experience at Chelsea and Juventus, Tous became the public face of the revamp, which was initially successful. Barca looked transformed under Flick, winning a domestic treble (La Liga, Copa del Rey and Supercopa) and reaching the Champions League semi-finals in 2025, where they lost to Inter.
But by the following autumn, problems had emerged.
Multiple players lost confidence in Tous and his training methods. The Athletic reported that Alejandro Balde picked up a hamstring injury in October after incorrectly using a piece of gym equipment, following coaches’ advice. Lamine Yamal also complained about the readaptation exercises he was given after suffering a groin injury, but the situation blew up when Raphinha suffered multiple setbacks from a hamstring injury in October. It prevented the Brazil forward from playing in El Clasico at Real Madrid that month, a match Barca lost 2-1.
Raphinha’s hamstring injury ignited a debate about Barcelona’s fitness coaching structure (Juan Manuel Serrano Arce/Getty Images)
Frustrations extended beyond the players to Flick, as Barca continued to suffer injuries. Last term, Barca saw nine players sustain hamstring problems, with some of those recurring, including for Raphinha and Pedri.
Dressing-room sources told The Athletic that Flick also lost faith in Tous over his reaction to growing disagreements with the players.
Several of those injuries came at critical points of the campaign. Raphinha, Frenkie de Jong and Marc Bernal were not available for the Champions League quarter-finals.
Though Tous is being demoted, other fitness coaches and physiotherapists who arrived as part of that 2024 refresh, including Raul Martinez and Pepe Conde, will continue their first-team roles as they are still highly valued by players and other members of the coaching staff.
