Time to treat footballers like human beings, not products

The horrific spate of injuries suffered by elite footballers during this international window is having serious repercussions on both their international teams and, more importantly, their clubs.

Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain still have work to do to secure qualification in their Champions League groups, but they will have to complete their task without Gavi and Warren Zaire-Emery, respectively.

Imagine the repercussions if these two teams find themselves demoted to the Europa League in December? It would be a financial disaster for the Catalan club and catastrophically embarrassing for PSG.

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While this is stretching the hypothesis quite far, if either of these scenarios came to pass, it’s arguable that former teammates Xavi Hernandez and Luis Enrique might need to worry about their continued employment. I still expect both teams to pass the test in their final two group matches, but it will be less easy, much less certain, without their teenage talents.

Real Madrid are through, but the loss of Eduardo Camavinga and Vinícius Júnior over the next few months adds to a considerably long injury list given that Thibaut Courtois, Éder Militão and Aurélien Tchouaméni are all out for the medium to long term. term. Neither Arda Güler nor Dani Ceballos seem capable of getting back into shape for much more than a day or two.

What shouldn’t be scoffed at is the €5.6 million Madrid could earn if they win their final two group matches, at home against Napoli and away against Union Berlin.

They are fortunate to have a run of enjoyable La Liga matches until their next really stern test, the second leg against Atletico Madrid in early February. Instead of thinking Madrid can actually turn the screws on their main title rivals (Atleti, Barca and, yes, Girona) by producing a two-month numerical advantage, Carlo Ancelotti thinks: Another serious injury and we are really struggling to get through the La Liga, Copa del Rey and Champions League schedule..

As for their Spanish Super Cup semi-final against Atletico on January 10, barring a miracle, Madrid will have to face the team that has already beaten them 3-1 this season without the majority of their stars currently on the roster injured (Tchouameni being the possible exception). ).

There are much bigger casualties to consider, however, as key players are now constantly grinding and cracking from fatigue-induced injuries. These victims are of course the players themselves.

I love and respect the work that FIFPRO, the global players’ union, does. Until footballers truly feel that they can and will unite and strike, it seems that FIFPRO still has a small voice. However, with the unprecedented damage being caused to the physical and mental wellbeing of our footballers, the question is to what extent does this small voice identify the threat? To what extent does it begin to draw attention to a real, growing, and damaging problem?

FIFPRO recently reported some shocking statistics. Vinícius had, at the age of 22, already played 18,876 minutes of club and national team football; more than twice as many as Ronaldinho at the same age. Pedri, who has always suffered from the most serious injury problems, had played more than 12,000 minutes by the age of 20; 25% more than Xavi at the same age. Kylian Mbappé, at 24, has played 26,952 minutes; an astonishing 48% more minutes than Thierry Henry at the same age. Jude Bellingham played 30% more minutes of competitive football by his 20th birthday than Wayne Rooney did at the same age. These are spectacularly disturbing facts.

After winning the Nations League in June, Rodri told me he had no chance of continuing to play the number of competitive minutes he endured last season. Otherwise, in his own words, there would be no way “I’ll be playing professionally at 34 or 35.”

Fortunately, or perhaps one should read “coincidentally”, the phenomenal Bellingham is not one of Madrid’s long-term injured players. His shoulder injury should have disappeared for one of the The Whites‘ the next two matches.

Before turning 20, David Beckham had amassed 829 first-team minutes and Steven Gerrard 2,853. Bellingham’s total when he reached that age in June was already 14,445 minutes. Think about it for a moment. In terms of matches, that makes nine for Beckham, 32 for Gerrard and 160 for the Madrid number 5. Is anyone thinking about the long term effects on this absolutely wonderful footballer?

Given that Vinicius is now out due to a hamstring injury picked up while on duty in Brazil, let me remind you that between August and April last season he covered over 56 000 kilometers (nearly 35,000 miles) of international travel. This is something that promotes fatigue and hinders recovery.

In light of the Champions League and Club World Cup significantly increasing the number of players’ matches starting next season, FIFPRO has put forward some suggestions. Let’s hope it’s not in an echo chamber.

They recommend that players take an absolute minimum of 28 days off between seasons, that footballers benefit from a firm guarantee of a minimum of 14 days free during a season (without matches or training), that teams are allowed one day off per week and, finally, that there are strict limits on the number of consecutive matches to which any player playing two or more times per week can be exposed. Simple? You might think so.

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There is no point in denying that even in this extreme and unlikely case, almost every cloud has a silver lining.

At Madrid, Brahim Díaz is just starting to show why he placed great faith in him, turned down AC Milan’s attempt to sign him permanently after a successful loan spell and returned to the Santiago Bernabeu (mostly on the bench ). He is clearly made on the right. stuff, he has that sass and flair that the crowd loves and, now, with so many injuries around him, he will have more opportunities to show his qualities.

What about Fermín López? You still might not know exactly who he is or how he plays. At the start of the summer he was looking at, in the best case scenario, a season trying to prove himself with Barcelona B. Good training sessions on tour, an incredible few minutes in which he scored a goal and an assist against Madrid in the friendly match in Las Vegas, and suddenly he started playing for the Spanish champions. With Gavi out, Pedri taking a small step back after his injury, ditto Frenkie de Jong, there is much, much more playing time for Fermin.

At Atleti, the deluge of injuries they are suffering means Rodrigo Riquelme plays often enough to have been capped for Spain and Pablo Barrios’ importance to the first team has soared. At PSG, the absence of Zaire-Emery opens the door to more playing time for Cher Ndour, Vitinha, Lee Kang-In or even Kylian’s little brother, Ethan Mbappé. It’s not all gloom and doom, nor is it all bad news. For the sake of balance, we must not lose sight of this.

But right now, our football calendar is like a grinding machine, eating away at the fitness, mental health, recovery abilities and general happiness of all our best footballers. If nothing is done, this timeline will become more hostile, more relentless and more damaging.

Those of us with a voice need to stand up and be counted. It is time to treat our best footballers as human beings and not as products.