cheesy wrote:You can easily understand that at the end of each season, footballers will naturally require a break from competitive football. The majority of them are top athletes, who have to constantly push their bodies to the limit.
While there is well over a month and often two months between the end of one league season and the start of a new one, it is easy to forget that footballers do not get a very long break. They actually have a rather small break, where they can go on holiday and simply relax; however after a few weeks off they have to return to the dreaded task of pre-season training.
Some may cite all of the dreaded fitness tasks that players must often participate in during the first few days of training as a necessary occurrence, but are they really? Unlike back in older days, players do not return to training in an unfit condition. The health issues for an athlete are now properly understood; therefore the majority return to their clubs in the excellent condition they left in.
It makes us ask, are these exercises really necessary. For most players who are still in a good physical condition, these exercises are nothing more than an annoyance: as they are of no benefit to them.
The only players who desperately require these sorts of exercises are the ones who are not in a good physical condition and are overweight. At the top of our game, there are not a lot of those people.
After this are the pre-season friendlies.
You can understand why any club would want to take part in a few friendlies before they kick off for the new season. They will want to test new setups and try out new signings, but do they need a long time to do this? In reality, all they need is two or three matches.
The big teams do not follow in this mould. They will often travel to all corners of the world: playing teams from different continents.
Does this really benefit the team? The truth is that it does not. A small tour around the teams home country, or to closer abroad destinations would be more beneficial, however there is a bigger reason behind it.
Teams know that by travelling to places like the USA, or Far East Asia, they can make a lot of money. Fans will turn up to games in their drones: many buying kits for the big club who are playing in their country. The club sit back and reap in the money they have earned.
Unlike several other issues in football, I would not say that this is a big issue. Football will continue to work perfectly well if it continues, however it does not follow the idea of pre-season football, where games are supposed to help players either develop, or resume first team football.
Travelling halfway across the world does not help players in any way: when you consider that they will also be getting dragged around the selected country or continent.
If it wasn’t for all of these extra matches, the league season could start a few weeks earlier. This would solve problems that can occur later in the season, when teams who are fighting on all fronts have a very busy schedule. The league season would be played over a longer time: meaning fixture congestion would be less of a worry.
Will this be changed in the near future? The answer is that it will probably not. With financial fair play coming in, big teams who want to spend a lot of money will need these pre-season tours if they want to generate a satisfactory amount of revenue.
As I have mentioned, the issue is not a big one, like match fixing or a lack of technology; however it would stop clubs constant complaints towards the end of the season about fixtures: something we all get tired of.
Last edited by Filippo Inzaghi on Mon Aug 01, 2011 12:13 am; edited 1 time in total
