The keys to a grueling calendar with no medium-term solution

After three months of official competition this season, the internationals of Barça They only had a match scheduled for a week. The following Wednesday Classic October 28 is the only free one in an increasingly tedious calendar already marked by transoceanic tours of the month of July (albeit with Clásicos) with the sole purpose of charging and exporting each club’s brand. No one is safe in a prank where everyone is at fault, both teams and clubs. “It’s a losing battle until the players stand up,” said Pep. Guardiola exhaustion Kevin de Bruyne for several months before European Super Cup of August.

The current scenario is very disturbing but the next one is even darker. The creation in 2018 of UEFA Nations League He limited friendlies (some on distant continents) but raised the demands of national team matches with the prize of a title or a place in the playoffs to get to the playoffs. world and the European Cup. That is the misunderstanding of World Cup in Qatar In November and December 2022, it forced club tournaments to stop for almost two months, the main victim of the pressures of a calendar FIFA which has been approved until 2030. In Congress of Rwanda Last March, only one change was approved to reduce the three breaks in the autumn league to two starting in 2026. Those in September and October will be combined into one with four national team matches combined ( between September 21 and October 6). 2026) who also left two in November. No other. And there is not even a hint of the old claim of grouping the qualifying matches of the national teams in a month at the end of the season when the club titles have been resolved, minimizing the changes in training and physical plans and the impact of possible damages to teams that pay footballers. .

More games around

In the short term, after the 24-nation German Euro Cup ends on July 14, the new Champions League starting September 2024 with 36 participants instead of 32 and eight league rounds (two of them in January after the also controversial Spanish Super Cup in Saudi Arabia) for the current six. At the end of the next campaign the new one Club World Cup with 32 teams (12 Europeans) for about a month between mid-June and early July 2025 in the United States. This will be the prelude to first World Cup with 48 teams instead of 32 in 2026.

In the short term there is only a small mixture of hope if the sentence to be announced on December 21 of Court of Justice of the European Union rules with monopoly UEFA and FIFA to organize competitions. This will open a way for clubs, which have Barça and Madrid up front, they can break the deck and force more games Super League rather than selections. A lesser evil but footballers at least play more than whoever pays them.

There are now eight crusader injuries

Courtois, Militao, Silva, Yéremi, Gavi and many more

Real Madrid, who lost at least two months Camavinga and Vinicius due to the ‘FIFA virus’, he was left before the start of LaLiga without one Thibaut Courtois and Eder Militao due to cruciate ligament injuries. In the case of Gavi, also has an affected meniscus. The list of Spanish championship players with broken cruciates has now reached eight David Silva (Real society), Joel Roca (Girona), Mauro Arambarri (Getafe), Aleksandar Sedlar (Alavés) and Yéremi Pino (Villarreal), who fell in training on Wednesday. A plague.

More injuries after the Qatar World Cup

Study the five major leagues

According to the study of the insurance company Howden Regarding the impact of the 2022 World Cup, players in the five best European Leagues spent an average of eight days injured after the final stage in Qatar. In October 2022 there were 88 injuries recorded with an average absence of 11.35 days, which increased to 19.41 in January 2023. soleus and fibula (200%), ankle (170%) and hamstrings (130%) increased significantly.