Shall We Start the Season Again?
07/09/06 21:22 |
General
So here we are in September and what do we find?
England have played as many games as most league
clubs. Ludicrous. Only three months after the world
cup, we've had a friendly and two qualifiers, all of
which together made for about 10 minutes of football
worth watching. Now I appreciate that Scottish and
Northern Irish readers (and possibly French ones too)
may not share this view but I have to say how utterly
idiotic it is to start the International season so
early in the domestic season.
Aside from the fact that it makes for a very stuttery start for most teams and, although it has to be said in general if we could start the season now I might be happier than I am having seen Bolton play three times already, it can only mean a lot of clubs pre-season work is pretty much wasted. OK, 11-15 or so players from each country have had three or part of three extra games but the rest of the squads won't. Half of the player called up have had two weeks of nice relaxed sitting on the bench. And that's without even the consideration of injuries, such as that sustained by Stelios.
As to the whole idea of this two week break being about helping the players prepare as best possible for the games, well with all due respect how much preparation should you need to play Andorra anyway? Darn it, if the Germans had only had a couple of extra days training, they might have been able to go for that 14th goal. And it's not even consistent anyway - the Italian league for example hasn't even started yet, so their players had lots of preparation time but they still bloody lost. The Spanish lost and half of their team seems to play for Liverpool but the other half play in Spain who have hardly got going yet either..
It's codwallop, frankly. It also doesn't account for the fact the only single good idea Sepp Blatter has ever had - no, not the one about female footballlers in hotpants, the one about separating international and domestic calendars - never got going. Maybe because by habit because the people round him's reaction was "Yes, Sepp, brilliant idea, we'll get to work on it right away quick, get the drugs, he's having ideas again" but it would actually work.
Tell you what you do. You have the qualifications for all tournaments played the summer before the tournaments themselves. Everyone plays the 8 games they have to play in say a 10 week summer mini season. The coaches get the players for an extended period so they can actually do some coaching. The fans get to have football every summer without all these daft meaningless friendly tournaments. The squads have to be used in full so more players get international experience and we actually get to see (for example) whether Aaron Lennon really is the best thing we can put on the right side of midfield and best of all footballers get forced to actually work 40-odd weeks a year for their exorbitant wages, just like the rest of us poor mugs do. What's the down side exactly?
I know it's not going to happen, but I can dream can't I?
Aside from the fact that it makes for a very stuttery start for most teams and, although it has to be said in general if we could start the season now I might be happier than I am having seen Bolton play three times already, it can only mean a lot of clubs pre-season work is pretty much wasted. OK, 11-15 or so players from each country have had three or part of three extra games but the rest of the squads won't. Half of the player called up have had two weeks of nice relaxed sitting on the bench. And that's without even the consideration of injuries, such as that sustained by Stelios.
As to the whole idea of this two week break being about helping the players prepare as best possible for the games, well with all due respect how much preparation should you need to play Andorra anyway? Darn it, if the Germans had only had a couple of extra days training, they might have been able to go for that 14th goal. And it's not even consistent anyway - the Italian league for example hasn't even started yet, so their players had lots of preparation time but they still bloody lost. The Spanish lost and half of their team seems to play for Liverpool but the other half play in Spain who have hardly got going yet either..
It's codwallop, frankly. It also doesn't account for the fact the only single good idea Sepp Blatter has ever had - no, not the one about female footballlers in hotpants, the one about separating international and domestic calendars - never got going. Maybe because by habit because the people round him's reaction was "Yes, Sepp, brilliant idea, we'll get to work on it right away quick, get the drugs, he's having ideas again" but it would actually work.
Tell you what you do. You have the qualifications for all tournaments played the summer before the tournaments themselves. Everyone plays the 8 games they have to play in say a 10 week summer mini season. The coaches get the players for an extended period so they can actually do some coaching. The fans get to have football every summer without all these daft meaningless friendly tournaments. The squads have to be used in full so more players get international experience and we actually get to see (for example) whether Aaron Lennon really is the best thing we can put on the right side of midfield and best of all footballers get forced to actually work 40-odd weeks a year for their exorbitant wages, just like the rest of us poor mugs do. What's the down side exactly?
I know it's not going to happen, but I can dream can't I?