FRISCO, Texas – It’s every strength and conditioning coach’s job to put his players in the best position possible to endure the rigors of a 34-game MLS season.
But FC Dallas’ Fabian Bazan has had a unique challenge. In his first year with the club, he inherited a roster that suffered from a handful of injuries in 2014, most notably talismanic playmaker Mauro Diaz.
The club’s Argentine star has been electric on the field – “he turns the lights on,” says head coach Oscar Pareja – but has missed 27 games since joining MLS midway through the 2013 season. Most of those have been due to injuries to his right leg, ranging from his quad to his knee.
“Mauro had some factors that were limiting his work and his performance,” Bazan told MLSsoccer.com. “His muscular composition, his eating and nutrition, the stability in his knee had a lot of problems, and his daily rest. He wasn’t resting as much as he needed.”
Bazan and Diaz got to work quickly, and although Diaz had a few spells on the sidelines – a monthlong period in March and April and again in August – a healthy spell in the early summer months and a strong run at the end of the regular season were indicators of a player transformed.
“We attacked four points with nutrition. Now he has a plan with nutrition,” Bazan said. “We did a little work with his right knee and the whole functioning of his right side, like the torque, acceleration and everything. We focused on the whole leg, not just the knee. He needs to rest at least 11 hours a day and eat a lot of fruit during the day.”
On the field, Diaz’s numbers bear out the success of his new fitness program. In 2013 and 2014, including playoffs, Diaz played 29 games total (17 starts) for a total of 1,509 minutes, scoring a total of six goals and six assists. In the 2015 season alone, Diaz has played in 27 games (all starts), totaling 2,292 minutes, eight goals and 11 assists.
“Mauro has had more consistency in the stretches that we had him this year,” Pareja told reporters on Saturday. “We still missed him for quite a few games. … We have developed ways to go an play without him, which is something that I prize with these players and this group, but having him on the field obviously just brings some different tastes of the game for us.”
Those tastes of the game have been more frequent, and may have something to do with Diaz’s new tastes in food. Diaz also credits Bazan’s individual attention for his turnaround in 2015.
“On the personal side it helped me a lot. His arrival did me good, because in years past there was less work with the individual, with the player,” Diaz said of his new fitness regime under Bazan. “But with the arrival of Fabian, he’s made me work double sessions in the gymnasium, made me change my nutrition and that also was very important.”
Diaz hasn’t been the only beneficiary of a change in the new fitness regime at FC Dallas, according to Pareja. In fact, the manager believes Bazan may be just as important as a healthy Diaz or any new signing to Dallas’ run to the top of the Western Conference this season.
“For me Fabian Bazan has been the most important to the team this year – and I’m not saying just the coaching staff. I say as a unit and to a club, he has been the most successful signing this year for us,” Pareja said. “And not just with Mauro but with everybody.”
