Real Sociedad's new era under Pellegrino Matarazzo is starting with intensity. The New Jersey-born coach has laid out a preseason that runs eight consecutive days at the club's Zubieta training complex, opening with physical testing and rolling into six straight training sessions before the first friendly of the summer.

For US coaches, Matarazzo is a notable figure. An American who built his coaching career in Germany, most prominently at Stuttgart and Hoffenheim, he now takes charge of a Basque club with a strong identity and one of the best academies in Spain. His arrival is a rare and visible example of an American on a top-flight Spanish bench.

Front-loading the work

Scheduling physical tests early and stacking sessions without a rest day is a deliberate choice. It lets a new coach gather baseline fitness data, install core principles quickly, and set the tone for standards from day one. It is demanding, but with a compressed calendar ahead, time on the grass is a scarce resource.

A punishing opening stretch

That calendar could be genuinely brutal. Real Sociedad may have to open the season by playing five rounds of La Liga in just 15 days. The crunch stems from a possible delay to their opener against Real Madrid, linked to the World Cup, combined with an early scheduling of the sixth-round match against Celta because of Europa League commitments.

The takeaway

The setup underlines why preseason conditioning matters so much. A squad facing five games in a fortnight needs a deep, fit and well-drilled group, and that work has to be banked before the fixtures arrive. Matarazzo's demanding start looks less like a stylistic quirk and more like a direct response to what is coming.