The level of premier league, cup and European games is relatively the same. However, the level of needless international friendliest, shoe-horned winter world cups and pointless nations league tournaments is ridiculous. Glad Harry Kane at least gets a winter break before the Euros.
I’m sorry how is a player playing for league and UCL in the same week different from playing in two international games in a week?
This argument is basically:
Players playing in games I like to watch is ok, players playing in games I don’t like to watch is bad.
Thats what you get when everyone are playing gegenpress these days
Too many games yes, but I also wonder if all the VAR time has lead to more injuries as players didn’t used to stand around for five minutes three times per half.
There is an article on ESPN that showed that injuries were up following the Winter WC.
It’s gonna be worse next year with euros in the summer.
The average amount of time with the ball in play is up 7.5% YoY (source: https://theathletic.com/4948795/2023/10/11/premier-league-added-time/), which would explain about half of the increase. You could argue a bit more, given the extra time is added at the end, when players are more tired.
World cup, fixture schedule etc I’m sure might also explain it - but looks like the change in how Injury Time is calculated - ironically - will have increased injuries
Player contracts need an equivalent of “overtime” clauses; i.e.: anything above 50 games per year incurs a per-game appearance fee, bar any cup finals.
Perhaps even more granular with total minutes tracked.
I wonder if its either covid or the covid vaccines, or both.
too many games innit
Not sure about that mate. The number of domestic games played has been the same for 25+ years now. 38 league games, usual number of FA cup and EFL cup games too. A full UCL campaign has also been 13 games for 25+ years too. The world cup has been the same length for 25yrs as well and the Euros has only been one game longer in recent years since 2016.
All these extra games that people think of like the new UCL league format, the club world cup and the 48 team world cup have not been implemented yet. There’s something else behind these injuries. It could be the increased intensity of the modern game or something else but blaming the number of games seems illogical because it hasn’t changed much.
It’s likely an issue of higher intensity plus something to do with the WC in Qatar last year. Norway didn’t qualify and Haaland was basically injury free all season which I thought was rare for him. Other players that played in both seemed way worse for the wear if they were playing 90-100 minutes in each WC match and late into the knockouts.
Longer injury time and the game has become more physical. Now it’s normal for players to run 10-12 km, before it was only for specific roles. Even the speed increased.
So while the number of games didn’t increase yet, the playtime and intensity has. And if the number of games increases the situation will get even worse
Yeah I agree its probably because of the high physical intensity of the game these days. I’m not sure about the longer injury time tbh because that’s something that hasn’t even been around for a year but we’ve had increasing numbers of injuries for a couple years now.
Or it is just nothing. Outliers happen.
I personally lean towards the extra intensity. It’s an open secret that all the top level players/teams are using the blood doping and other tricks to increase oxygenation levels and recovery times. The tactics of the game such as constant high level pressing keep players running further and faster than in the past. If you watch old highlights from 20 years ago, the space players have in the midfield is unreal compared to the compactness and speed at which players are closed down today.
Word for fucking word what I came to say
But I get to see football and that’s all that matters apparently
and for once it’s not us with the injury crisis. Not sure anything will be like 20/21 season
Don’t jinx it. You can lose 2 starters in the space of a few days for 3 months when on international duty…
Looks like Brentford might have done exactly that with Collins and Norgaard
Mate we already lost Robbo…
or lose 3 in a single game
Nope
Video games
Too many games. Full stop.
We just had a world Cup in the middle of a season, of course it will impact the following season
Could be all sorts of reasons or pure coincidence
Jurgen just loves a moan…
his style of play is the main cause. high press, high intensity for 90+ minutes.
Liverpool don’t even have an injury problem this year compared to the rest. What are you on about?
I always find it interesting how people here always complain how nation team managers always play their best players for their qualification games (8-10 games spread over 2 years) and disregard how clubs don’t rotate the same players in over 50 games per year.
Barca had a god like teenager who played 72 games in one season for club and country… Since that season he has missed 40% of the games with injury…
Barca had a god like teenager who play 90% of the minutes for club and country. He recently tore in ACL and meniscus, in a low priority international match which nearly all other players were rotated.
The difference is that clubs cannot sign and register new players outside of the transfer window.
If the squad is riddled with injuries, the club will have to work with what they have until the transfer window reopens. In short, their choice and ability to rotate players are restricted to multiple constrains such as injuries, timing, money etc
The NT has none of these constrains (for the international break). They can call up whichever best and fit squad available. If they feel like player A is gassed or not in a good shape, they can easily call up player B before the break starts. They don’t have to sign player B for X amount of money, they just need to add him to the call up list. In short, NT can rotate players easier.
Also disregard how their club probably goes to the USA, back to England and finish in East-Asia in preseason, playing up to 8 full games in preseason.
Money more important than players health to FIFA UEFA and sky