The environment, too. The planet is collapsing, but because it isn’t a televised sport, we don’t see it. Puts people being off being happy and buying things, if we saw what is happening and how rapidly it’s getting worse.
We can’t keep acting as though all that matters is more entertainment in our lives.
The entertainment being provided so we will buy lifestyles is not sustainable. We all know it.
Absolutely, some of the flights you hear about these teams taking are so pitifully short its mental.
I mean the amount Injuries players are getting not just at United but other teams as well. Surely there is enough evidence out there footballers play too much.
But this is what capitalism does to a product, its squeezing as much money as they can out of product while the quality collapses.
Going to get even worse with the expanded champions league and club World Cup too. All the PL teams in Europe, plus Chelsea and Tottenham are already so injury hit and we’ve not even got to the busy part of the season
Literally all of the major tournaments are getting bigger. Next Champions League is bigger, next Euros is bigger, next World Cup is bigger, next Club World Cup is bigger. This is only going to get worse for the players.
its squeezing as much money as they can out of product while the quality collapses.
Not really, there are better ways to make money from football than more games. Just look at american football. They play 17 games once a week. And its the most commercialised sport in the world.
There are ways to make stupid amounts of money without running the players into the ground.
But either way fans get fucked. Either through paying more for TV for more games or through a worse experience with mid game ads
Yeah the nfl has still fucked itself. They’ve added the 17th game which was a mistake, they add more Thursday games which are almost poor quality.
The concession is they’ve massively reduced practise time, which is lowering quality among the teams.
The rookie contract structure is almost massively hurting team quality, because teams overly rely on less experienced players, that aren’t able to gain experience in padded practice.
Theyre getting away with it because the American appetite for football is insatiable at the minute and they’re realised the same thing as the premier league. The games don’t have to be good.
A big part of the issue in football is that every federation is competing for a bigger piece of the pie. UEFA want more European games and FIFA want a bigger club world cup. Meanwhile CAF will always want AFCOn to run every 2 years as it's their cash cow, and similar with other international federations.
Another advantage that NFL has is that all teams are at a more similar level, so more games feel big. This means that they'll get good viewership if they're spread out over the week, whereas I don't think many people are excited to watch Wolves Vs Fulham on a Monday night.
Eh only the best of best are playing too much. And they get compensated more, waaayyyy more than enough for that.
It's not about compensation, but about the threshold of what the human body can endure. Players are getting injured so often they cannot catch a break to heal properly, because there is yet another game and their teammates are getting injured too, because they had to play more to cover for other injured players. Vicious circle.
Not really trye, teams in league 2 for example play a shit ton of games every season.
It's a bit ironical, considering how much we fans are against this concept, but a super league could actually be better for the players. With the clubs being owners of the league they'd be able to dictate how many games there would be. Right now they're part of 3-4 different competitions that all want the teams to play as many games as possible for their competition.
You see the same in Formula 1 now, with drivers complaining that their bodies aren't made for the amount of races.
I kinda agree but the big clubs will adapt and they are the ones playing the most games, bigger squads with options to rotate players might be the solution. Man City is kinda doing that already at least when it comes to the back line and wingers. It won't be easy though for a manager to know when to rest his best players.
I agree with him 100%. It's why most of the big clubs have bigger squads and players with some good versatility, so help cover multiple positions and allow others to rest. It's hard on the smaller teams and those with less back up options in their squads. Brighton especially seem to be decimated with injuries whilst also having to factor in a European schedule.
Yeah, if this keeps up it's gonna become really important to have a versatile squad and bench. Having players who can only play one position is gonna be a luxury
Chelsea have enough players to rotate for another 2 more competitions. Best club ITW /s
The bigger clubs usually had more matches. But with addition of conference league, the smaller clubs are beginning to feel the same pain
Oh yeah thats a good point. Here in the eredivisie, with recent coefficient points we have and the conference league, 8th place will already play europa games. Thats the half of the league where it used to be (on the top of my head) first champipns league play offs and second europa league play offs
That’s why I’m so grateful for Darmian. Without him we’d have been in the mud last year and even this year with Pavard going down and also Dumfries having no backup
As an Arsenal fan, I'm really grateful we have Trossard and Tomiyasu. Both can cover multiple positions and both are really talented footballers.
Europa has always been difficult for teams to handle. You often saw teams qualify and then next season be battling relegation. This isn't a new phenomenon.
Im surprised the most upvoted comments wasn't a "Erik ten excuses" joke.
I think this is one way managers such as Pep, Arteta & even Klopp partially have been ahead of the curve, by building squads where a single player can play multiple positions. This allows better coverage of injuries and better rotation. Still not sufficient but assuages the effect somewhat.
Manchester United have been too focussed on putting all the eggs into one basket with huge $$$ signings since Pogba and ETH is partially at fault, buying players like Mount who can just play in one position (which is already, more or less, taken by Fernandes) and average dosh like Anthony.
Increase squad size and limit how many games a player can play in a year.
Of course the "obvious" solution is to reduce games played but that will put a dent in the organizer's pocket so it's never happening.
What do you think of mandating a minimum number of minutes for academy players/season, to take pressure off big players. Something like 2000-3000 minutes (i.e 20-30 games worth, to be split between as many academy players as need be). Also incentivizes clubs bring youth through
Interesting idea but how would you account for academies that don't have players at a decent level enough for top tier football, prevent burnout of that one top prospect etc?
Also for clubs that get promoted, they are already facing an uphill battle to avoid relegation.
If they are forced to play youth too, that will make things all the more harder since the bigger clubs will just sign the promising players.
The number of games issue is primarily for clubs in the CL, EL, ECL.
impossible, it will just ruin the market and quality of the league.
reduce games played but that will put a dent in the organizer's pocket so it's never happening.
People always ignore that the players won't accept dropping their wages either. It's just
Manager who doesn't rotate his first XI when he has the option to is surprised when players get injured.
The injuries are mad this season.
It's not just the amount of matches but also the stop start nature of VAR and playing 50-55 minute halves mean it's becoming a joke.
Every team seems to be having an injury crisis. Limping across the line to the next international break.
Increasing squad size is the way. The governing bodies love money too much to play less games so having more players could go some way to alleviating the stress on players’ bodies.
Agreed. It's already started to cross the limit of what a referee can handle. That bunda referee tore his ACL yesterday.
Faster pace and very high press too. Work rate to this gen player is insane.
Ehh
So many childish and straight up bad takes here (capitalism fault, environment, bla bla) What it boils down to is what average stress load can a footballer physically take and the lack of transparency what is expected in terms of a football club.
If they recognise, on average, that the amount of games exceeds the possibility for the average player, then a) they make it clear that clubs should structure around creating more squad depth to enable rotation and look at transfer policy in a more well-rounded squad than paying stupid money for the ideal 11. Or b) cut on games and competitions that aren’t necessary (league cup). The base problem is that clubs are over-paying on transfer and player salaries, which incentivises the need for more matches.
Clubs just need to get it out of their heads that they have to succumb to stupid transfer fees.
How is “capitalism’s fault” a childish excuse, it’s a genuine reason why there’s too many games, so the Premier League, UEFA, FIFA etc. can be greedy and make more money
That’s what capitalism is
So why NBA players can do Back to Backs? 👀
(i am not even american)
Because they're different sports. During the Stanley Cup playoffs, you play every other day, even if the last game had 3-4-5 overtimes. MLB regularly does doubleheaders and any regular season game could go on until there's a winner. Mention a 20 game regular season to NFL players (or try to increase to workload of pitchers) and you're a dead man.
Go look up how much the average distance an NBA player runs in a single game. Then look up how much the average distance an football player runs in a single game.
Soccer players run up to 3x the distance, do full sprints way more often, and have the added difficulty of dribbling/turning.
As a football fan, I’m really confused why I’m hearing so much talk about how the schedule is more congested than ever and players are at a breaking point. Since I started watching football 15 years ago, the schedule has been the same as it’s always been for the players in the Top 5 leagues, same cups, same UCL format with 4 international breaks every season and I major tournament every 2 years. Yet the for the last couple of years I’ve been hearing many coaches, players and fans going on about how their age too many games nowadays when the schedule is the same as it was 15 years ago. Also the new UCL and CWC format come into effect yet so I’m even more confused. And it’s usually big 6 coaches, fans and players that complain about the schedule like someone like they have the chance to rest their players and use the bench or academy players in cup games. Arteta doesn’t have to play Saka in the FA CUP and league cup if he genuinely cares about his fitness levels. Can somebody explain what I’m missing because I am very confused?
"I love playing 12.30" Jürgen Klopp
plays bruno once again
Capitalist Stakeholders: Okay.
That's why the big clubs invest in good substitute players as they need to be rotated. I may get it wrong, but it seems like he is trying to make excuses by blaming the schedule instead of his coaching skill.
Nothing shows the bias of this sub than when a united player/manager says the exact same thing as Liverpool/city/Chelsea.
“Just buy more players” is an absolutely terrible take on an issue pretty much everyone agrees is a problem