Between the regular club season, cup football, continental campaigns and international fixtures and major tournaments, when do football stars get a rest?
2016 has been a bumper year to be a football fan. Leicester City’s upset triumph, an insane Euro 2016 as well as the Copa America Centenario have headlined a year where football was constantly on minds and television screens all across the globe.
However, as preseason rages on in the form of club friendlies, Champions League qualification campaigns and organised tournaments such as the International Champions Cup, can there be such a thing as too much football?
To preface this hypothesis, it must be acknowledged that footballers are human. Regardless of the often superhuman efforts they produce on a football pitch for 90 minutes at a time, these athletes are people too.
They too are potential victims of stress, tiredness and injury – just like you or me. As such, doesn’t it warrant the consideration of the elimination of fixtures to allow for a proper recovery time after a hectic season?
To get a real look at how intense a season can be for a top footballer, it seems all but appropriate to use the man tipped by many to be named the world’s best footballer in 2016 at the Ballon d’Or ceremony in a few months’ time.
The one and only Cristiano Ronaldo.
Ronaldo has done it all in 2016. Despite being unused in cup football by club side Real Madrid, Ronaldo featured 48 times for Los Blancos in 2015-16, netting 51 times in the process.
This included a Champions League run which saw him top score the tournament with 16 goals in just 12 games on the way to securing an unprecedented eleventh European title for his side.
Let’s take a step back for a second. 48 matches. 48. This figure does not include international matches, of which Ronaldo featured in another 15 in 2015-16, including helping Portugal to the Euro 2016 crown.
Assuming each of Ronaldo’s 63 matches in 2015-16 finished in regular time (which many didn’t), it can then be calculated that the Portuguese played 5,670 minutes of football in the calendar year. That is a ludicrous amount of football.
Throw in constant training, travel and media appointments and you are left with an overall picture of a group of professionals whose minds and bodies are pushed to the absolute limit year in year out.
These players get just under a month, if that, before returning to training at the conclusion of a season and are often scrutinised for enjoying themselves on holidays.
Personally, I’d rather see footballers granted more down time to keep their bodies and minds fit and firing, rather than injury blotted campaigns and rundown players taking the pitch.
It’s important to remember that our professional athletes are people too. They deserve their holidays just as much as we deserve to watch top footballers strut their stuff on the international and club stage.
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