The central aim of this program is to establish the foundational principles for the rehabilitation of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries, one of the most challenging and impactful injuries in football, due to the combination of high severity and high incidence. With few exceptions, ACL reconstruction typically results in the player being unable to compete for approximately one year. Beyond the health, performance, and economic implications—particularly in professional football—two additional factors must be considered. The high recurrence rate following return to play.

The decrease in player performance after returning to competition, which can persist for months or even years. These aspects are synthesized and addressed in the first conceptual axis, which highlights the most relevant factors to guide the planning of rehabilitation tasks for footballers with ACL injuries.

The three subsequent conceptual axes focus on the practical application of rehabilitation strategies, presenting exercise proposals grouped by objectives, and analyzing each from a kinematic and electromyographic perspective. The second conceptual axis focuses on balance as a physical quality, along with fundamental movements, such as front and lateral lunges. These are considered “fundamental” because they provide the basis for developing more sport-specific skills in later stages. The third axis addresses the transition from fundamental movements to initial functional skills. This includes introducing squat work and exploring variations of these foundational exercises, as well as incorporating different types of jumping actions. The fourth conceptual axis focuses on fundamental sport-specific skills, representing the first phase of football-specific movement training. It describes and exemplifies braking and acceleration actions, primarily in the sagittal plane, and then progresses toward more complex actions in the transverse plane, particularly changes of direction and rotational movements performed in a horizontal direction.