Introduction
In the leadup to their first Champions League match of the season, Manchester City’s Rodri was asked about the busy schedules a footballer at the top level has to endure each and every season. Rodri in his reply had a lot of complaints and even said a pretty shocking thing. So let’s look at why Footballers have been complaining in recent months/years about their busy schedules and if it affects the game of football in any way. Or if it affects how the players have started viewing the sport in any way.
What Does One Mean by Busy Schedules in Football?
It’s no secret that due to the expansion and the introduction of countless various competitions, the schedules of top-level footballers have become busier by the season. There was a time not long ago when playing 40-50 games was considered a very long season and a busy schedule for a top-tier footballer. But in today’s day and age, that is almost considered to be an average number of games for a footballer.
This case gets worse the higher the level you play at club and international level. The higher your level, the more difficult and taxing the matches you play are. Also, the higher the level, the deeper you go into tournaments such as domestic cup competitions and European cup competitions elongating your already long season.
It is no secret that today we see many more major and minor injuries happening to players more frequently than ever before. This has a direct correlation to the increased number of games in a football’s busy schedule. The risk of getting injured increases significantly the more you play in a season. Competitions like the UEFA Nations League mean that even during International Breaks top-level athletes need to represent their nations.
On top of that, the UEFA Champions League has adopted a new format starting from this season which has quite a lot of pros and cons. And undoubtedly one of the biggest cons is that it has increased the number of matches each team has to play in Europe’s premier league. Then again, there’s been an update to the Club World Cup format as well which has made it unnecessarily longer and more complicated significantly increasing the number of matches.
Rodri isn’t the only footballer who has spoken out on this. Previously even Kevin De Bruyne has had a few things to say about the busy schedules a footballer has to endure.
How Do Busy Schedules Affect the Game of Football?
When Rodri was asked, “How many games a season do you think is an optimum level for an elite player to play?”, the Spaniard gave a very apt answer. Rodri, who is in the running for the Ballon d’Or this season, stated, “I think between 40 and 50 is the amount of games in which a player can perform at the highest level. After that, everything comes, and you drop because it’s impossible to sustain your physical level. And yeah, and I think this year we’re gonna go until 70. Maybe 80.”
He further went on to say, “In my humble opinion. I think iss too much. I think we have to take care of ourselves. Someone has to take care of ourselves because we are the main characters of this. Let’s say sport or business, whatever you want to call it.”
Apart from this, the biggest and the most shocking revelation of the interview was when Rodri hinted that footballers may have to go on strike to prove their point! If this does happen, it would be totally unfathomable as nothing like this has ever happened before. But such is the plight of the footballers. The ones who want to just earn money from Football and view the sport as just a business seem to overlook the fact that at the end of the day, Footballers are humans too and in fact, they are the most important asset to the sport of Football.
Do you think Footballers should go on strike if this trend of making busy schedules in football continues? Or should there be no more busy schedules so that footballers can maintain their optimal levels and give their best every time they step out on the pitch? Let us know in the comments below.
