LASK’s return to the Champions League after 61 years has already transformed the season in Linz, and the league-phase draw has added a landmark trip to Real Madrid. The Austrian side will visit the Bernabéu in the penultimate round, the first meeting between the clubs, with Madrid-born physiotherapist Javier Cordero set to return home as part of the visiting staff.
For Cordero, the fixture brings together a rapid professional rise and a rare European occasion. Two years ago he was working in Germany’s third tier after his 2. Bundesliga club had been relegated. A move to LASK and Austria’s top division followed, and now he is preparing for a Champions League campaign that will take the club to one of the competition’s most imposing grounds.
“I have worked my way through almost every level of football, from the fourth division to Germany’s second tier and now the Austrian Bundesliga,” Cordero said. “That path has taught me a great deal professionally and personally. Looking back, I feel immensely proud and very fortunate.”
Playing Real Madrid carries particular weight for a Spaniard who was born and raised in the capital. “To go back to my country and my city in these circumstances is truly special,” he said.
A club season beyond anything Linz has known for decades
LASK had expected major opponents once they entered the Champions League draw, but being paired with Madrid gave the occasion an added scale. The Bernabéu visit is still more than three months away, yet it has become a central point of anticipation for a club experiencing Europe’s top competition for the first time in more than six decades.
Cordero described the mood inside the club as difficult to put into words, saying events have arrived so quickly that there is barely time to absorb them. The opportunity to face one of Europe’s biggest clubs, he said, offers LASK both extra motivation and a chance to present themselves on a major stage.
There will be no special medical or physical blueprint simply because the opponents are Real Madrid. LASK expect to use the same approach they apply for other European away fixtures, while maintaining their emphasis on the next match rather than allowing a distant tie to dominate the calendar.
“There is always additional motivation when Real Madrid are involved,” Cordero said. “But there is still a long way to go. As a team, we try to stay in the present and be as ready as possible for the match in front of us each week.”
He believes LASK’s progress rests partly on a group fully committed to the message of its leadership. The club has had outstanding players at different points in its history, he said, but a side is more likely to advance when players genuinely believe in the idea being put before them and move in the same direction.
Managing the strain of a European schedule
The demands of domestic and continental competition place recovery at the heart of LASK’s week. Cordero stressed that player management is not the responsibility of one department alone, but depends on regular exchange between medical, performance and coaching staff.
Champions League weeks make that cooperation even more important. Staff assess objective workload data alongside players’ own daily reports on their physical condition, using both to keep the squad as fresh as possible and to guide decisions on training and recovery.
The identity of an opponent does not alter that process. What matters, Cordero said, is the measurable intensity of the matches already played that week and the resulting need to regulate each player’s load.
He sees modern football physiotherapy as increasingly evidence-led. The work has moved away from relying mainly on passive treatment and towards active interventions and progressive exposure to physical load, although hands-on table treatment retains an important role. Combining both methods, he said, produces better outcomes.
Injury prevention also has limits. Cordero said injuries cannot be eliminated entirely because they arise from multiple causes. The aim is instead to identify and adjust the factors that elevate risk, reduce that risk where possible, and prepare players to withstand the requirements of elite football.
Respect for Madrid, belief in competition
Asked which Real Madrid player stands out physically, Cordero declined to make individual assessments of footballers he has not worked with. But he pointed to a wider standard in the modern elite game: players still capable of high-speed 60-metre sprints late in matches despite the heavy exertion already accumulated.
That capacity, he said, is a striking illustration of the physical level now required at the top of the sport.
LASK will arrive in Madrid as outsiders, but Cordero insists the occasion should be approached with competitive ambition rather than resignation. “Nothing is predetermined in football and many things can happen,” he said. “We have a very good working group and enormous enthusiasm to show ourselves in Europe as a team eager to compete.”
