There is a rhythm to the week that supporters rarely see. The match is only the visible part. The real work is the reflection afterwards, and then the quiet adjustment of details before the next one. Our last match was away to Lausanne, the league leaders. A 0–0 draw. From the outside that might read as a disciplined defensive performance, and in many ways, it was, but the result is only the beginning of the work for us.

The match finished on Sunday evening, so Monday morning the players reported back to the training complex in Chur. It surprises people sometimes that we do not run a recovery session on the pitch. The starting eleven – everyone who played more than sixty minutes – are simply told to rest. Properly rest. One of the benefits of the new facilities is that rest does not mean sitting at home. The gym, pool and sauna are open, and the public spaces inside the building are used by the players and their families. Some of them bring their children. Some spend time in the recovery areas. A few disappear into the small library that Iñaki had built when the complex was finished. It was his idea that the building should feel like a place players wanted to stay, not somewhere they rushed to leave.

There is almost no football on this day: the players recover, the staff work. The analysts collect data, clip the video and build the tactical reports. Iñaki does not coach on the day after a match. He watches. He studies. He asks questions. The players who did not play in the game or those who just made cameo appearances are often tasked with physical work – endurance done on the grass or in the gym, weight-room work or speed work with our newest sets of machinery. They finish the day with some match practice – it doesn’t meet the same level as the game from the day previous, but they, and whatever youth team players are around the complex, get some competitive action to keep them fresh, healthy and to give them a workload that does more than just maintain their footballing education. The only change comes with where our last fixture was played: away from home and we spend the night in a hotel, travel back the next morning and don’t kick things off until after lunch, at home and we travel back from St Gallen in the evening and report for 9am.

It’s new thinking but we’ve only been full time for three seasons now. Previously, Iñaki would expect the facilities here at Chur to be deserted the day after a game; he’d come in early, grab a coffee and watch the game footage back with the calmness of absence, but he’s changed. Watching and reading about what the big clubs do and noticing that those who played less developed less, he told us that he wanted a shift in principles. We think we’re the only side in the Super League to be doing this but we also think in percentages – marginal gains – and we think about the whole club, not just about those who had their fill of action this weekend. It is an important balance for us: rest for those who need it, competition for those who are pushing to play.

The Lausanne match gave us a lot to think about. Defensively we executed many parts of our identity well. Our disengaged defending worked exactly as designed – the team stayed compact, resisted the temptation to chase high pressure situations, and forced Lausanne into less dangerous spaces. For a team at the top of the table, they created very little that truly worried us. But a clean sheet is only half of our football. When we reviewed the game, two themes became clear. Our direct attacking patterns were arriving too slowly after regains, and when we did reach the final third our chance creation lacked clarity. We reached promising positions, but the final pass or the final movement was often delayed by one extra touch.

These are small margins, but they matter. So the training week shifts slightly.

Monday sees everyone back – we hit some recovery work: massages, rehab, general stuff on the pitch and then shift to a very ‘tactical-heavy’ stuff: creating chances, shadow play in the offensive or defensive phase. From Tuesday onwards, the next four days become very focused on reinforcing the core elements of our style. We do not change the principles – that is important – but we sharpen the details that the match revealed.

A lot of our work becomes shadow play and this continues across the week, depending on what we’ve learnt about the previous opponent and what we think the next one will provide. It happens than most people would expect. Entire sequences of the team moving through our attacking structures without opposition, repeating the movements again and again until the players can recognise the pattern instinctively – this is where Iñaki comes into his own.

We work through the moments after a regain: how quickly the first pass travels forward, where the wide players position themselves, how the striker stretches the line. The ball moves quickly, but the emphasis is always on the movement around it.

 Then we build it into the press-and-restrict work. If we want to attack quickly, we must first win the ball in the right areas. So we rehearse our pressing triggers and our compact shape behind the press. The defenders practise stepping out and then dropping back into the disengaged block if the press fails. The attacking groups spend time specifically on chance creation and conversion. Small exercises at first – combinations around the box, third-man runs, finishing sequences – before everything is placed back into the eleven-against-eleven structure.

By the time Friday arrives, the tactical picture is clear again. The players have seen the corrections. They have repeated the movements. And slowly the week shifts from reflection back to anticipation. The supporters see the ninety minutes.

For us, the match with Lausanne did not end at the final whistle. It simply told us what the next week of work needed to look like.