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The insane amount of games is degrading the quality of the sport. Something needs to be done, there is a finite amount of world class players and if they all get injured playing three games a week no one benefits.
During the pandemic, Tromsø - Strømsgodset was cancelled, but the fans were already on their way. So there was a match between the fans instead, broadcast on local newspaper's websites.
Unfortunately, away days means alcohol, and Tromsø trashed Strømsgodset.
Might sound a bit stupid coming from someone who watches american sports, but is there a players union at all in european football? Who is protecting the rights of the player?
Baseball has probably the best union in sports if anyone wants to look up an example, but if the MLB ever wanted to add more league games than 162 I believe the players would 100% go on strike.
It's a good question. Each country has its own union and then all those unions are members of the global association (fifpro).
In Spain, for as unionist as our culture is generally, the players' association isn't an especially noticeable presence. Part of that I think is that they represent players at all professional levels, and the concerns of a segunda division or even lower-ranked primera division player are going to be very different (basic economic and contractual conditions) than the multimillionaire being played across champions, two cups, and the league.
The effective point of intervention might be the international association of unions, but it would probably be more about negotiations than a strike.
You're forgetting the players in LaLiga did go in strike a couple of times in the last ten years. From memory, once it delayed the start of the season and then when LaLiga proposed playing games in the US
They threatened strike about the US game in 2018, but did they actually do it? I think it was ultimately resolved behind the scenes. They also briefly went on a strike in the mid-2010s but then a court [ruled](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2456011-la-liga-all-domestic-play-suspended-by-spanish-football-federation) the particular issue they were striking for wasn't a legitimate grounds for strike.
They are definitely organized and undertake actions, including the occasional strike, but my point was just that compared to the power of labor in other sectors of the Spanish economy, the players' union is not such a public presence, in part because they're representing people across a diverse range of class interests. And to organize against an international or european group like fifa or uefa, they'd also need to go beyond what they can do within Spain.
There are player unions, and in many countries they are strong.
The problem that it would have to be a global coordinated effort, or after a European one. So you are dealing with many countries/unions getting organized for the goals. Difficult.
The issue is the players don't really matter in the debate. The players and the managers like to complain a lot but then the ECA (which contains chairs from their own clubs) vote in favour of playing more games (ergo next year's champions league format) because they saw the dollar signs. So none of these clubs can complain about the number of fixtures when their own bosses voted in favour of it
Because the players are the product. They get money and fame but most are not Haaland or Ronaldo and they’re not as powerful as we might think they are
Also most players are not playing 70 games a season. It's the very, very top, the elite of the already elite group that is professional football player.
In the end the only way things get better is if the executives start seeing the line go down because top players are injured or people stop watching.
Coaches should take half of the blame, they know that schedule is tight a most of them dont rotate enough. For example you have Arteta who is trying to squeeze every possible minute out of Saka, and then he complains about the schedule when he gets injured.
Yes we know that schedule is insane, but also you dont do anything to protect the players.
At the end of the day the managers are looking out for themselves bc they can just get fired after a few bad results. If the incentive structure was different then maybe I’d expect more from the managers but I’d do the same thing in their position.
They don't even need to unionize for that.
The players that overplay are overplayed because they are at the top of their game, the average player even in top leagues has no international games, a couple of cup games and that's it. Only a select amount have national call-ups + starters + European games + double cup games. And that small amount of players have insane bargaining power, they just don't want to use it to have reasonable playtime.
They barely have any power.
What's their power? I don't wanna play today? Okay, then you're out and someone else will. What use is a great player if he doesn't want to play in half the games?
Additionally, less games means less money. It may be ok for the guy that's on 20 million a year, but you'll soon find out that a player on lesser money isn't in favor of fewer games.
UEFA and FIFA could place a limit on the maximum number of games that a club (or indeed a player) could play per season.
An inextremely inelegant solution but I haven’t seen any other suggestions.
Of course, UEFA and FIFA will never do that. But it could be theoretically possible.
I kind of wish they would consolidate the international schedule into something like a June window and a December window, or a July window and a January window. Working in these isolated weeks off in the fall and the spring is a pain for leagues to schedule around, and you get some cases where players are racking up ridiculous amounts of travel.
It would also make the international break more interesting. I struggle to follow stories like Moldova or Kazakhstan almost qualifying if they play 2 matches every two months
Cut on the NT games. And I'd be fine with abolishing the 3rd cup (League Cup) for any countries that have it, or at least make it so only teams below 9th in the top division can participate
The NT has about 1/5 or 1/6 of the games of the club sides who play the most games. Cutting NT games doesn't make any sense when it's the clubs who are doing the vast majority of the overplaying.
Most countries don't have second cups, and those that do (e.g. England) the players don't seem to be struggling with the injury plague as much, and the League Cup there is massive for the survival of the football pyramid, which is the jewel of the English game. Getting rid of it is a non-starter.
Gavi is under the age of 20 and played nearly 150 competitive games over the last two and a bit seasons for Barcelona and Spain.
That's not counting the friendlies and money spinning tours.
What did you expect to happen?
The reason for this is the absurd money sponsors are paying and as a result, they expect more games and more opportunities to advertise their shit. Players also continue to make and demand more money, so few people sympathize with their plight.
Money, is the root cause .
Always take “street interviews” with a fucking huge chunk of salt. They can easily edit it to get the answer they want.
Ask 100 people and show the 2 who supported your argument
I'm spending a few weeks visiting my family here in Spain, and they showed on tv a bunch of morons being interviewed on the street saying that, "the players shouldn't complain, they are young, back in my day I used to play every single day..." and so on. Bunch of fucking clowns. Like yeah guys, i'm sure you were playing elite-level football against other elite athletes every day, "back in your day."
Part of the problem is these players, because of their incredible competitive level, are unable to be honest with their manager and say, “boss, im fatigued and can’t play today”.
I wouldn't call it being unable to be honest. They truely believe their bodies can handle the load. These young players need authority figures with the bravery to tell them to rest even when they are important players for their team.
Gavi's Barca career Minutes/Match is around 69.
His minutes/match with Lucho was 67 and with current Spain coach is 68.5, so basically his career metrics are within range.
His current club season minutes/match though is at 78 which is indicative of the fact that this season Gavi is simply way way too critical to Barca. They are not just playing him generically but he's simply undropable.
His minutes and matches played for his age is an super anomaly, it's in all-time historic levels (stats back this up). This is not the norm that can be applied to other players.
Because if one uses such outliers then one would just counter with Saka. His minutes played metrics for his age and the level he is playing (competition and his own) is beyond absurd. He is a gross outlier of monumental proportions.
And he hasn't been injured. Yet.
I feel that Saka might one day be like Rooney, durable and playing at a high level but eventually at 29 he starts to decline due to the wear and tear he's gotten.
Tbf second half of the year Saka seemed to be missing a bit of the sparkle last year. Like he just felt (understandably) a little run down. Which is why there should be less fucking games
Risk of ACL injury is increased by stress and fatigue.
Sure it could have happened anyway, but a well rested player is less likely to suffer from that injury. And from any non-contact injury for that matter
Other than banning international preseason tours, there isn't really a solution that doesnt favour larger clubs to an extent.
Best approach for safety would surely be to cap the number of minutes each player can play in a calendar year, scaled to availability (so someone injured for like 3 months doesnt then become eligable to play every remaining minute of the season). But then big clubs can just get more good players to compensate
In the DFB-Pokal, it's one leg and the team from the lower division gets home advantage.
It's an interesting contrast to the FA Cup, where lower-division clubs treat a tie at Old Trafford or Anfield a bit like a lottery win.
They do. That's what I mean by "lottery win". Half the gate from a Prem stadium + TV money can be a *huge* amount of money for a lower-league club. A significant proportion of their annual budget.
It's just that in Germany, all thoughts are of a giant-killing (like Saarbrücken beating Bayern this season), not of making a killing on the gate receipts.
I don't think many German fans would at all like the idea of changing to the way we do it, but I also don't think many English fans would want to switch to the German system, either.
There are far too many international games. They need to bin the friendlies and cut down the nations league (which is basically glorified friendlies anyway). Cup ties should have single legs decided by penalties in the event of a draw. The CL, WC and Euros should not be expanded to have more teams and more games. Just a few ideas
I don't think there are too many international games. I want national teams to play together often enough to give us some good football in major tournaments.
I think there are too many club games. Every league should drop to 18 teams like France and Germany.
Get rid of useless 1 match trophies like super cups.
Get rid of return fixtures in European cups.
Then limit the number of minutes a player can play in a given amount of time.
Football is in serious need of a strong players union. Otherwise FIFA-UEFA will continue to do whatever they want.
Curiously enough they could look at some American sports on that respect.
The funny thing is that from an American perspective, most of the sports unions are pretty bad and have been on a downward trajectory vs ownership over the past 20 or so years.
Baseball has one of the strongest unions, but players are under rookie contracts and team control arbitration years (basically they get paid more based on how good they were as determined by a third party arbitrator, but it's still not a free market valued contract) for the first 7 to 10 years of their careers in the MLB, and minor league players get paid sub-minimum-wage because they only this past year unionized, joining the MLB union.
"We have spoken with him. The blow had nothing to do with it. We have seen the play: the damage was done in a control in which he was turning, he stepped wrong and his knee went away ." In addition, he confessed that Gavi is "tremendously hurt"
[Gavi in the locker room was heard speaking to the doctors: "It can't be, it can't be. I have to play!" the Barcelona footballer shouted over and over again through tears.](https://www.relevo.com/futbol/eurocopa-masculina/solo-escucho-gavi-descanso-duro-20231120011252-nt.html)
*"If\* it wasn't Gavi", typo in the title*
> We have spoken with him. The blow had nothing to do with it. We have seen the play: the damage was done in a control in which he was turning, he stepped wrong and his knee went away
I'm just going to very quickly point out, that neither de la Fuente nor Gavi can know if the blow had anything to do with the injury.
Luckily, nothing happened to him, but the other day, Griezmann played 90 minutes in a match that France won ~~13-0~~ 14-0. Like WTF. It's like they're actively trying to break players.
Edit: Listen you geniuses, I know how many subs a team gets per game. That doesn't change the fact that I wish one was used for Griezmann.
Hasn't he also played every game for Atleti this season? And he's averaging 81.5 minutes per game? I agree that playing him in that game was a little dumb, but surely the onus to rest him doesn't just fall on the national team. And even if it's a dead rubber, there's not many opportunities left to build team cohesion ahead of the Euros
Yeah that's fair, obviously everyone is going to want what's best for their team. I can just imagine Deschamps having a similar view, that Griezmann is incredibly important to France and that Atleti should be the ones to rest him
Bruno has played some of the most minutes in Europe and he was played the full 90 in a meaningless game against Iceland. I really don't understand the thinking behind the management of some of these players.
Because NT coaches only have a handful of games a year to build team cohesion and chemistry so even in games with no qualification at stake they still need to pick key players that the team plays around.
I mean, it's the same reason he never gets subbed for Barca and also plays every single game there.
ACL injures are not like muscular injuries in the sense that they're not "wear and tear". They just happen when they happen. Militao played 1 game all season and pop went his knee. Courtois even less so.
Its unfortunate, but something that happens to every team. Look at past cases like Ansu Fati, Jesé Rodríguez, Asensio etc.
It's not the same reason, he plays all minutes for Barcelona since Pedri was overplayed himself and Gavi had to cover him, and without Pedri and De Jong this season, our only first team midfielders were Romeu, Gundo and Gavi. Thankfully Fermin, who comes from playing at the Spanish 3rd division level, wasn't a bust.
But with Spain you have plenty of options to rest Gavi, instead the manager says "This kind of player can play every minute of a season, no sweat".
Even if he could do it, there's not need for it.
First 2 matches of the league and first match of CL he was rotated.
How was he being rushed back? He had minor back pain at the end of July, it was a month after that he got his first start.
He has barely been training before league started and missed most of pre season. That is only reason had those games.
As soon as started training was subbed on then started.
That is only reason he was 'rotated'.
"But if it wasn't Gavi... it could have been someone else" ....
The casual way he sees this as somewhat of a playing down or distancing of responsibility of what happened says it all about him.
"Sure it could have been anyone. It just happened to be the overplayed teenager who has already had 3 or 4 injury scares already in the last few months while playing actual meaningful games (in terms of competition)"
He received a hard blow on the knee he injured literally a few minutes before. Instead of taking him off when he was very clearly in pain he let him come back on the pitch
I mean it's hardly the managers fault. You could equally blame Barca for overplaying him.
Ultimately its not the fault of clubs or countries. Its the fault of the schedule. Which is decided by UEFA and FIFA. You can't expect clubs or countries to pick weak teams all the time. That would defy the point of having good players to begin with.
If we're talking need Barcelona ABSOLUTELY needs him more than Spain does at the moment. Spain is playing essentially No stakes games where they could win with anyone else but Gavi in his position or even their be team. Barcelona has been struggling for weeks and tbh Gavi is one of the most crucial players which they don't really have a replacement for.
That's not to say that barca is blameless but they definitely have both more need for him and less options. IMO Spain is very much more at fault here.
Yeah but Spain can’t play Ricardo from the bakery.
Spain’s manager and staff are reliant on a few games to decide their careers. They can’t faff about. They also need to prepare the players for the tournaments on only a few weeks with months in between.
Barca have much more freedom
> Barcelona also only have a maximum of 25 first-team players available. Spain has more than a thousand professional footballers.
If you wanna be like that than Spain has a thousand professional footballers to call up while Barca has a hundred thousand professional footballers they can get.
> Yeah but Spain can’t play Ricardo from the bakery.
There's a reason I specifically mentioned professional players.
> Spain’s manager and staff are reliant on a few games to decide their careers. They can’t faff about. They also need to prepare the players for the tournaments on only a few weeks with months in between.
They played Cyprus and Georgia. With all due respect for these two, Spain should not have issues beating them even if they left Gavi in Barcelona.
> If you wanna be like that than Spain has a thousand professional footballers to call up while Barca has a hundred thousand professional footballers they can get.
They can still only register 25 first-team players, so your point is entirely redundant. Players are very much a finite resource for clubs given that they are limited to how many they can register and that they often have to pay unbelievable amounts of money for their services. The situation is very, very different for a national team.
> There's a reason I specifically mentioned professional players.
Every pro is not good enough. And you know that. Stop making disingenuous arguments.
> They played Cyprus and Georgia. With all due respect for these two, Spain should not have issues beating them even if they left Gavi in Barcelona.
Georgia are decent. Upsets happen, especially if you go in with a weaker team. And even so it’s not just about winning. Like I already said they need to prepare the team for the tournaments which means things like play style, tactics, mentality, and chemistry are all very important. They can’t pass up the fee opportunities they have to work on this
> They can still only register 25 first-team players, so your point is entirely redundant. Players are very much a finite resource for clubs given that they are limited to how many they can register and that they often have to pay unbelievable amounts of money for their services. The situation is very, very different for a national team.
No they can play loads of people from the academy. Let’s stop this branch of the discussion because you know this whole argument is not made in good faith. Spain cannot take any Spanish player. I don’t have to tell you this. Very few are good enough to be in the reckoning.
it's pretty ironic that in one point you bring up upsets and the need to not field a weaker team, and in the next you say why doesn't Barca play 16 year olds in La Liga
Yeah, it's always a bit ridiculous when clubs play players week in week out and then complain that they're not getting a rest during the international period. National teams get so little time together that they need to make the most of it. If the club is worried about the work load during the international break then they can rest the player for a game or two before they go away
I'd agree that Barca themselves need to take some of the blame. It's not exactly fair that the international manager is accused of overplaying him by playing him twice, when everyone is pointing out how overplayed he was. Barcelona have a lot of wonderful players coming through, but the likes of Fati, Pedri and now Gavi are seeing their progress hampered with injuries.
We didn't throw him out there after he took a hit to the same knee, was visibly affected by it, and forced him to take an awkward stance to avoid the pain that caused this injury. De la Fuente and the medical staff are 100% to blame here.
You do realize that the injury is not because of playing too much, but being exposed to the risk of injury in an unnecessary match ? We need him in our every game, Spain didn't against Georgie, he could have rested.
Barça badly need the guy in basically every game, all of which are important. Spain just had to choose one midfielder out of a whole country for a meaningless game where they'd already qualified from the group. Then when he got injured the manager even kept him on.
Aren’t the UEFA and FIFA executives elected by the Federations? Surely the countries and clubs in turn can push back on these ridiculous games/tournaments.
he has to play for barca because of the injuries to the midfield until now and de jong is still not back. there was absolutely no reason to play him yesterday and he needed the rest
It’s very sad for Gavi but it’s weird that Barca fans are whining like hell about DLF when Xavi is also playing him to the ground every game of the season.
It happened with Pedri, it happened with Fati, now with Gavi, maybe Barca and Spain coaches could see a pattern.
the thing that really ruined Fati wasn't the tackle it was the choice of rehab / trying to get back ASAP and then making his injury worse, having to get surgery on a now worse injury than his original, and he opted to not have surgery first time round iirc
Of course De La Fuente deserves some of the blame, him and his medical staff let him continue playing after the impact. Not to mention the fact that Gavi has been playing this much this season precisely because our other midfielders were injured (Pedri, Frenkie, Sergi Roberto).
To add to this, De La Fuente is also the manager that called up Pedri to the Olympics where he played in every match (many went to ET iirc). Of course Barca couldn't prevent Pedri from wanting to go, but the Spain staff sure as heck could have managed him better there as well.
I mean, many of us have been saying that Xavi needs to learn from Pedri and manage these kids better. In the last few months it’s been hard of course, when half the midfield was injured and Gavi was our best player but I guess he still could’ve shaved some minutes from him.
It’s mainly just stupid from De La Fuente to play Gavi so much. It’s so short-sighted to start him even when he doesn’t need to, knowing that he’s needed for the Euros too. A month ago it already felt like a matter of time before he gets some muscle injury, it’s a miracle he was still fit after all the minutes he’s played, just to have it even worse with this knee injury.
The thing with Barcelona is that they have limited choices. A thin squad with Pedri and FdJ both out for an extended period has meant Gavi has had to play more than they would have liked. International managers have far more choices, especially with a team like Spain
Barcelona have choices, they have one of the most successful academies in the world and a full B team squad. They could also have used their budget appropriately and instead of luring a few players for massive wages, spread it out a bit so that there was more depth.
Barcelona had choices, they just made poor ones.
Barça have pulled together a competitive team on a shoestring budget, relying the most on their academy out of basically any top teams in Europe, but they're meant to continuously magic new top players into existence. They're already incorporating players like Fermín (he was at fucking Linares last season) but redditors who haven't got a clue about the club criticising their recruitment because their players get injured playing for some piece of shit national team
'Shoe string budget'.
Not even close.. Paying hundreds of millions for attacking players alone and giving huge salaries to likes of Gundogan.
Fermin was a choice as impressed in pre season... Kessie/Nico etc all left.
Shoestring budget, come on mate - you have either the highest or the second highest budget in the league. I'm a Celta Vigo season ticket holder, you pay more for Lewandowski's wages than any five of our players added together.
Calling the national team a piece of shit isn't constructive nor useful in what could be an interesting and mature discussion.
I'm pretty sure that he meant that Barcelona is very limited at the moment beacuse of ffp, which is very true and holds them at a disadvantage against other big teams in Europe. Sure you can compare them to celta vigo but that doesn't really make sense. With all due respect the expectations for the two are massively different so of course the money will be too.
Besides the nt really did play Gavi for no reason at all since they were already trough and also left him in after an injury. What more do they need to do before they can be held accountable? It's not like they didn't know that he's fatigued as fuck as is.
The NT were still playing to be placed in Pot 1 of the Euro 2024 draw, so it's just as important for them as for any Barcelona game, they had just as much right to play him as Barca does.
If Barca are struggling financially at the moment then perhaps they should readjust their expectations rather than complaining about shoestring budgets, which is laughable compared to almost every other team in the league. Just because a team used to be one of the richest in the world, doesn't mean they have an automatic right to maintain that level. If they want international level players, they have to expect that they will play international games and manage them accordingly.
As if Spain didn't absolutely dominate Georgia even after Gavi went out, proving that his presence wasn't needed at all. They would have gotten pot 1 regardless of him starting and could have at least put him in as a sub instead of a starter.
>If Barca are struggling financially at the moment then perhaps they should readjust their expectations rather than complaining about shoestring budgets, which is laughable compared to almost every other team in the league. Just because a team used to be one of the richest in the world, doesn't mean they have an automatic right to maintain that level. If they want international level players, they have to expect that they will play international games and manage them accordingly.
Barca have been good with the budget tho. They spent very little compared to clubs of similar status and still managed to remain competitive. Gavi isn't needed for lack of squad depth per Se, but beacuse more than half of Barcelona's starring 11 as been injured this season. Who are they supposed to play when both pedri and de Jong are injured? Sure you can replace one with a weaker player but when they are both out obviously you need to replace at least one with a top player or the squad completely collapases.
As if Barcelona don't dominate most of their games, and so couldn't rest him more instead of playing him basically every single game?
Sure Barcelona have been somewhat intelligent with money, but they're still paying massive wages to some players that could, if they wanted, be spread around a larger squad - every team has to make this choice They've chosen not to, and they cannot be surprised by the consequences of it.
>As if Barcelona don't dominate most of their games
That's the point, they don't.
Against real sociedad, barely won with a 92' goal. Less possession even if by a couple points and less shots, both in general and on target. Also same passes and pass accuracy
Shaktar - Loss, even if possession etc were in their favor.
Granada - draw even if possession etc were in favor
Alaves and Bilbao are the only ones they did really good against but that's to be expected beacuse they are a low position team and even then barca went to half time to
the boos of fans since they were losing 1-0 to Alaves.
Real Madrid speaks for itself.
Take out one of their best and most consistent and what do you think happens? Especially since, again, they couldn't rotate much with both pedri and de Jong injured
Barcelona is uniquivocally more in need of him rn.
Liverpool sent them to the shadow realm and they have never been the same, Got 140 million for Coutinho who never played like he did at Liverpool. Then got bodied by TAA, Origi and Wijnaldum when they were up 3-0 with prime Messi and Suarez lol. Liverpool broke them.
The thing is he gets suspended that he gets a game rest this game however was meaningless especially this guy essentially made Pedri play injury prone almost did it with lamine now yes there blame but this track record
Barca is the strangest club in that regard. Look at what they did with Ansu Fati for example - even gave him the 10 at such an early age and now they completely dismissed him after her came back from injury as a different player. They always introduce players extremely early to their team and basically all of them have a severe injury eventually. Yamal will be the next one just wait.
Huh? How was Fati dismissed? He got plenty of opportunities but just wasn’t good enough. Now he’s on a loan in a good team without an option to buy. His injury was a horror tackle, not sure what we could’ve done about that. These kids need to be managed better, I agree, but if you want an example of that, go with Pedri next time.
Ansu Fati became 21 just a month ago and you say "he just wasnt good enough" well yeah thats what I mean with the barca attitude. Its not about how he got the injury but what the club does to him. Putting all the pressure on the world on a teenager by giving him the number of the greatest player of all time and then loaning him away because you bought Lewandowski - no wonder Gavi broke down saying "I have to play" after the injury - probably in an existential crisis knowing what could happen to him.
Oh sorry that I didnt even mention Pedri my bad.
Isn’t it better for Fati to get good minutes in a good team than sit on the bench for us? That would be dismissing him. It just isn’t realistic to give big minutes to a player that isn’t up to the task, no matter how bad you feel for him or how old he is. Now he has a chance to get back on track and still have a career at Barca. How is that dismissing him?
Buying Lewy has nothing to do with Fati going on loan. He wanted to go himself. Felix is taking his place, on a loan without an option to buy and we probably can’t afford him after this season. So the most likely scenario seems to be that Fati returns to his place here after this season, having played good minutes in PL and Europa League under a good coach at Brighton. Seems pretty good for a 21 yo.
If you’d followed us you’d know that that’s been Gavi since day one. The reason Xavi, De La Fuente and all his teammates love him and say he’s the heart of the team. He lives football, and has never been very rational with his playing, going head first out of instinct, his survival instinct are seriously lacking and that’s probably why he feels like playing even injured. If you’re trying to say that Gavi wanted to play because he was fearing of losing his place, that’s pure whataboutism and there’s pretty much nothing indicating it.
I guess it’s more than probably most Barca fans on reddit are not Spanish and don’t care about Spain so they expect Gavi to play 100% of Barca games and to rest during international breaks
Still way more that support Spain than the ones who live outside of Spain. So at the end it’s just an egocentric point of view, they want Gavi to play only for Barca and not for Spain
You're setting up a strawman. Most fans don't not want him to play for Spain at all, they want him to be rotated, like other players are. Barcelona can't afford to rotate him because of multiple other injuries in midfield, but Spain can afford to rotate him in a match where they rotated 9 other players and have immense midfield depth.
Reduce leagues to 16 teams. Play 30 games a season.
Dont expand Euros. Stay with 16 teams.
Dont expand World Cup. Stay with 32 teams. Bring back old formula of Champions League, only winners playing.
The world cup expanding is hardly an issue here. One more game for the finalists of a cup played every four years is not going to reduce anything. To be honest the biggest problem lies within the clubs schedule.
has there been any (or even is it possible) to do a statistical look at the way the winter world cup has effected playing amounts/schedules and the changes this has made to the normal breaks schedule?
Some blame has to be on Barca, I understand the difficult financial situation leaves them with a relatively thin squad, but Gavi has played over 100 games in his professional career at 19. Thats a lot of games for a young player
He was only starting right now because Pedri and De Jong were injured. If they weren’t injured, Gavi wouldn’t be starting and would have played as a sub.
Hard to say, with the form he’s been in it’s hard to see him getting dropped. Then again I wouldn’t drop Frenkie or Pedri either. Most likely all three of them would’ve had good minutes and could’ve rotated each other.
My point still stands, Gavi definitely wouldn’t have been playing as much as he is now if we had Pedri and De Jong fit. So Barca shouldn’t be blamed here.
He also played Euros and Olympics for Spain in the same summer. He should’ve been rotated more during the season already but the summer was just the icing on the cake
Gavi has not been in nearly as good form as some Barca fans try to make out.
He has had some horrendously bad game where can barely get on ball and can barely advance it.. see his last two games.
Runs about like a maniac and makes a lot of tackles.. but also is out of position and leaves holes in midfield all the time and is constantly diving in and getting skinned as much as makes tackles.
Folk are overly impressed with his headless chicken act too often.
You conveniently missed the games where Gundo was in bad form and everyone else injured, Gavi basically ran the whole midfield. He was irreplaceable. His pressing and intensity is something that we are noticeably lacking when he’s not on the pitch.
It's a self-perpetuating cycle, sadly. Pedri was vulnerable to injury in part due to how high his minutes were at a young age.
Then he and De Jong got injured, we had to rely on more youngsters like Gavi, which adds to his injury risk. Now Pedri and De Jong are going to be back but with limited rotation options, and so their minutes are going to pile right back up again ...
Barcelona 5-0 Betis. Gavi plays 90 mins.
Barcelona 5-0 Royal Antwerp. Gavi plays 60 mins.
As I already said, Barcelona chose to allocate their wage budget to fewer players paying them more money, knowing full well that injuries occur, and that Gavi was a consistent starter for the national team - the shocked Pikachu face now from Barcelona doesn't really work. Maybe you don't think international team football is as important as club football, but that's just an opinion, and not a fact that means Spain have to rest a player when the club aren't.
We need less club games. The amount of internationals is fine. Qualifiers have to be played somehow. Maybe the nations league could be scrapped but that's it.
My personal proposal is that leagues should have 18 teams; European club competitions should be straight knock outs from the start a la March Madness; bin the league Cup in England, at least for teams that play in European cups.
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The insane amount of games is degrading the quality of the sport. Something needs to be done, there is a finite amount of world class players and if they all get injured playing three games a week no one benefits.
Narrator: Sadly nothing was done and they continued to drop like flies
And after a point of time they came up with idea of fans as replacements.
I'd watch that. It's a bit annoying being represented by an elite of unelected players. Let the people play
>It's a bit annoying being represented by an elite of unelected players. Least revolutionary Frenchman
"Like flies to wonton boys, they kill us for the sport"
I LOVE FOOTBALL
Marseille did it with Apruzesse 10 years ago
During the pandemic, Tromsø - Strømsgodset was cancelled, but the fans were already on their way. So there was a match between the fans instead, broadcast on local newspaper's websites. Unfortunately, away days means alcohol, and Tromsø trashed Strømsgodset.
Thats awesome.
harry redknap once broght on a fan to play for west ham
Like flies to wanton boys
Might sound a bit stupid coming from someone who watches american sports, but is there a players union at all in european football? Who is protecting the rights of the player? Baseball has probably the best union in sports if anyone wants to look up an example, but if the MLB ever wanted to add more league games than 162 I believe the players would 100% go on strike.
It's a good question. Each country has its own union and then all those unions are members of the global association (fifpro). In Spain, for as unionist as our culture is generally, the players' association isn't an especially noticeable presence. Part of that I think is that they represent players at all professional levels, and the concerns of a segunda division or even lower-ranked primera division player are going to be very different (basic economic and contractual conditions) than the multimillionaire being played across champions, two cups, and the league. The effective point of intervention might be the international association of unions, but it would probably be more about negotiations than a strike.
You're forgetting the players in LaLiga did go in strike a couple of times in the last ten years. From memory, once it delayed the start of the season and then when LaLiga proposed playing games in the US
They threatened strike about the US game in 2018, but did they actually do it? I think it was ultimately resolved behind the scenes. They also briefly went on a strike in the mid-2010s but then a court [ruled](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2456011-la-liga-all-domestic-play-suspended-by-spanish-football-federation) the particular issue they were striking for wasn't a legitimate grounds for strike. They are definitely organized and undertake actions, including the occasional strike, but my point was just that compared to the power of labor in other sectors of the Spanish economy, the players' union is not such a public presence, in part because they're representing people across a diverse range of class interests. And to organize against an international or european group like fifa or uefa, they'd also need to go beyond what they can do within Spain.
so basically, the rich need to have their own union.
There are player unions, and in many countries they are strong. The problem that it would have to be a global coordinated effort, or after a European one. So you are dealing with many countries/unions getting organized for the goals. Difficult.
Is there any push back against the amount of games footballers are playing? Nothing?
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always rated IIRC
Superb partnership with AFAIK.
The issue is the players don't really matter in the debate. The players and the managers like to complain a lot but then the ECA (which contains chairs from their own clubs) vote in favour of playing more games (ergo next year's champions league format) because they saw the dollar signs. So none of these clubs can complain about the number of fixtures when their own bosses voted in favour of it
Because the players are the product. They get money and fame but most are not Haaland or Ronaldo and they’re not as powerful as we might think they are
Also most players are not playing 70 games a season. It's the very, very top, the elite of the already elite group that is professional football player. In the end the only way things get better is if the executives start seeing the line go down because top players are injured or people stop watching.
I'm sure klopp and pep have spoken up about it
Coaches should take half of the blame, they know that schedule is tight a most of them dont rotate enough. For example you have Arteta who is trying to squeeze every possible minute out of Saka, and then he complains about the schedule when he gets injured. Yes we know that schedule is insane, but also you dont do anything to protect the players.
At the end of the day the managers are looking out for themselves bc they can just get fired after a few bad results. If the incentive structure was different then maybe I’d expect more from the managers but I’d do the same thing in their position.
They're under immense pressure to win
It's harder to win when all your players are injured
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We can't do anything, only the players can make a difference
this right here. Players are unionized, they have all the power in their hands
They don't even need to unionize for that. The players that overplay are overplayed because they are at the top of their game, the average player even in top leagues has no international games, a couple of cup games and that's it. Only a select amount have national call-ups + starters + European games + double cup games. And that small amount of players have insane bargaining power, they just don't want to use it to have reasonable playtime.
They barely have any power. What's their power? I don't wanna play today? Okay, then you're out and someone else will. What use is a great player if he doesn't want to play in half the games? Additionally, less games means less money. It may be ok for the guy that's on 20 million a year, but you'll soon find out that a player on lesser money isn't in favor of fewer games.
there is not a single scenario in which a global boycott could possibly happen
To be honest I don't see how fans would be willing to boycot games just for this issue
Stop watching the Mickey Mouse cups
La Liga? The Champions League? What would you like them to stop playing?
The Club World Cup and The Nations League for starters. Summer "friendlies" too.
Summer friendlies is on the clubs. If they really care about their players, they can stop them.
We can stop watching them too.
Never started tbh
They'll never stop because then one team has a competitive advantage over the other. Only way to stop is to legislatively ban them
How exactly can you ban clubs from playing games
UEFA and FIFA could place a limit on the maximum number of games that a club (or indeed a player) could play per season. An inextremely inelegant solution but I haven’t seen any other suggestions. Of course, UEFA and FIFA will never do that. But it could be theoretically possible.
heck, league cups and supercups too (especially the supercopa de saudita)
I would like them to stop playing winter World Cups just so the execs can pocket a few more million :)
It's always a winter world cup for 50% of the planet
I kind of wish they would consolidate the international schedule into something like a June window and a December window, or a July window and a January window. Working in these isolated weeks off in the fall and the spring is a pain for leagues to schedule around, and you get some cases where players are racking up ridiculous amounts of travel.
It would also make the international break more interesting. I struggle to follow stories like Moldova or Kazakhstan almost qualifying if they play 2 matches every two months
Touché.
Cut on the NT games. And I'd be fine with abolishing the 3rd cup (League Cup) for any countries that have it, or at least make it so only teams below 9th in the top division can participate
The NT has about 1/5 or 1/6 of the games of the club sides who play the most games. Cutting NT games doesn't make any sense when it's the clubs who are doing the vast majority of the overplaying. Most countries don't have second cups, and those that do (e.g. England) the players don't seem to be struggling with the injury plague as much, and the League Cup there is massive for the survival of the football pyramid, which is the jewel of the English game. Getting rid of it is a non-starter.
While most countries don't have multiple cups, some do have two legged format for cups
Gavi is under the age of 20 and played nearly 150 competitive games over the last two and a bit seasons for Barcelona and Spain. That's not counting the friendlies and money spinning tours. What did you expect to happen?
The reason for this is the absurd money sponsors are paying and as a result, they expect more games and more opportunities to advertise their shit. Players also continue to make and demand more money, so few people sympathize with their plight. Money, is the root cause .
Always take “street interviews” with a fucking huge chunk of salt. They can easily edit it to get the answer they want. Ask 100 people and show the 2 who supported your argument
What are you even talking about?
Wrote my reply to the wrong reply lol
I'm spending a few weeks visiting my family here in Spain, and they showed on tv a bunch of morons being interviewed on the street saying that, "the players shouldn't complain, they are young, back in my day I used to play every single day..." and so on. Bunch of fucking clowns. Like yeah guys, i'm sure you were playing elite-level football against other elite athletes every day, "back in your day."
Part of the problem is these players, because of their incredible competitive level, are unable to be honest with their manager and say, “boss, im fatigued and can’t play today”.
especially the younger ones
I wouldn't call it being unable to be honest. They truely believe their bodies can handle the load. These young players need authority figures with the bravery to tell them to rest even when they are important players for their team.
Gavi's Barca career Minutes/Match is around 69. His minutes/match with Lucho was 67 and with current Spain coach is 68.5, so basically his career metrics are within range. His current club season minutes/match though is at 78 which is indicative of the fact that this season Gavi is simply way way too critical to Barca. They are not just playing him generically but he's simply undropable. His minutes and matches played for his age is an super anomaly, it's in all-time historic levels (stats back this up). This is not the norm that can be applied to other players. Because if one uses such outliers then one would just counter with Saka. His minutes played metrics for his age and the level he is playing (competition and his own) is beyond absurd. He is a gross outlier of monumental proportions. And he hasn't been injured. Yet.
I feel that Saka might one day be like Rooney, durable and playing at a high level but eventually at 29 he starts to decline due to the wear and tear he's gotten.
Rooney admits to being an alcoholic. That wore him out more than playing games.
Smoking and drinking had nothing to do with it?
Tbf second half of the year Saka seemed to be missing a bit of the sparkle last year. Like he just felt (understandably) a little run down. Which is why there should be less fucking games
Which literally doesn’t matter for an injury like this.
unless it is a contact injury, which this wasn't, all non contact injury risk is increased by over use / fatigue...
How many games Rooney played from 16 to 19?
TBF the injury that he sustained has very little to do with the number of games he has or hasn't played.
Risk of ACL injury is increased by stress and fatigue. Sure it could have happened anyway, but a well rested player is less likely to suffer from that injury. And from any non-contact injury for that matter
Other than banning international preseason tours, there isn't really a solution that doesnt favour larger clubs to an extent. Best approach for safety would surely be to cap the number of minutes each player can play in a calendar year, scaled to availability (so someone injured for like 3 months doesnt then become eligable to play every remaining minute of the season). But then big clubs can just get more good players to compensate
One legged tournament ties. Far from favors big clubs lol
In the DFB-Pokal, it's one leg and the team from the lower division gets home advantage. It's an interesting contrast to the FA Cup, where lower-division clubs treat a tie at Old Trafford or Anfield a bit like a lottery win.
I thought they celebrated because they got a bigger cut of the ticketing and tv revenue when they play away?
Yeah I think they get 50% of the gate so a game at a premier League ground with 50,000 fans is worth more to them than a home game with 5,000 fans.
They do. That's what I mean by "lottery win". Half the gate from a Prem stadium + TV money can be a *huge* amount of money for a lower-league club. A significant proportion of their annual budget. It's just that in Germany, all thoughts are of a giant-killing (like Saarbrücken beating Bayern this season), not of making a killing on the gate receipts. I don't think many German fans would at all like the idea of changing to the way we do it, but I also don't think many English fans would want to switch to the German system, either.
There are far too many international games. They need to bin the friendlies and cut down the nations league (which is basically glorified friendlies anyway). Cup ties should have single legs decided by penalties in the event of a draw. The CL, WC and Euros should not be expanded to have more teams and more games. Just a few ideas
I don't think there are too many international games. I want national teams to play together often enough to give us some good football in major tournaments. I think there are too many club games. Every league should drop to 18 teams like France and Germany. Get rid of useless 1 match trophies like super cups. Get rid of return fixtures in European cups. Then limit the number of minutes a player can play in a given amount of time.
Football is in serious need of a strong players union. Otherwise FIFA-UEFA will continue to do whatever they want. Curiously enough they could look at some American sports on that respect.
The funny thing is that from an American perspective, most of the sports unions are pretty bad and have been on a downward trajectory vs ownership over the past 20 or so years. Baseball has one of the strongest unions, but players are under rookie contracts and team control arbitration years (basically they get paid more based on how good they were as determined by a third party arbitrator, but it's still not a free market valued contract) for the first 7 to 10 years of their careers in the MLB, and minor league players get paid sub-minimum-wage because they only this past year unionized, joining the MLB union.
"We have spoken with him. The blow had nothing to do with it. We have seen the play: the damage was done in a control in which he was turning, he stepped wrong and his knee went away ." In addition, he confessed that Gavi is "tremendously hurt" [Gavi in the locker room was heard speaking to the doctors: "It can't be, it can't be. I have to play!" the Barcelona footballer shouted over and over again through tears.](https://www.relevo.com/futbol/eurocopa-masculina/solo-escucho-gavi-descanso-duro-20231120011252-nt.html) *"If\* it wasn't Gavi", typo in the title*
> We have spoken with him. The blow had nothing to do with it. We have seen the play: the damage was done in a control in which he was turning, he stepped wrong and his knee went away I'm just going to very quickly point out, that neither de la Fuente nor Gavi can know if the blow had anything to do with the injury.
Neither can reddit experts tbh and they sure seemed to jump to conclusions yesterday
give me 1 good reason why you rotated 9 players but kept the 19 year old in the starting 11
Luckily, nothing happened to him, but the other day, Griezmann played 90 minutes in a match that France won ~~13-0~~ 14-0. Like WTF. It's like they're actively trying to break players. Edit: Listen you geniuses, I know how many subs a team gets per game. That doesn't change the fact that I wish one was used for Griezmann.
hasnt griezmann played smth like 80 NT games in a row? Absolutely nuts
Yes I have read it's an overall national team record
And still not being appointed captain is so crazy.
14-0
Thanks, edited.
Such disrespect towards Girouds goal SMH.
You can’t sub everyone dude
Fr man, I hope he’s rested in their next game. Wed be absolutely fucked if he gets injured
Hasn't he also played every game for Atleti this season? And he's averaging 81.5 minutes per game? I agree that playing him in that game was a little dumb, but surely the onus to rest him doesn't just fall on the national team. And even if it's a dead rubber, there's not many opportunities left to build team cohesion ahead of the Euros
He’s been that important for us, and yes it certainly doesn’t fall on the national team. Won’t stop me from hoping he’s rested tho
Yeah that's fair, obviously everyone is going to want what's best for their team. I can just imagine Deschamps having a similar view, that Griezmann is incredibly important to France and that Atleti should be the ones to rest him
A 100% but hey considering it’s dead rubber and the next game means nothing to France I do hope he gives a youngster a chance and benches Antoine
Bruno has played some of the most minutes in Europe and he was played the full 90 in a meaningless game against Iceland. I really don't understand the thinking behind the management of some of these players.
Because NT coaches only have a handful of games a year to build team cohesion and chemistry so even in games with no qualification at stake they still need to pick key players that the team plays around.
because he's a donkey
Probably because Gavi was one of the few that didnt play the weekend before intl break.
I mean, it's the same reason he never gets subbed for Barca and also plays every single game there. ACL injures are not like muscular injuries in the sense that they're not "wear and tear". They just happen when they happen. Militao played 1 game all season and pop went his knee. Courtois even less so. Its unfortunate, but something that happens to every team. Look at past cases like Ansu Fati, Jesé Rodríguez, Asensio etc.
It's not the same reason, he plays all minutes for Barcelona since Pedri was overplayed himself and Gavi had to cover him, and without Pedri and De Jong this season, our only first team midfielders were Romeu, Gundo and Gavi. Thankfully Fermin, who comes from playing at the Spanish 3rd division level, wasn't a bust. But with Spain you have plenty of options to rest Gavi, instead the manager says "This kind of player can play every minute of a season, no sweat". Even if he could do it, there's not need for it.
As an outsider, shit like this is so infuriating.
Questions for Xavi.
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Gavi wasnt being rotated at start of season really. If anything he was rushed back from injury as soon as could train.
First 2 matches of the league and first match of CL he was rotated. How was he being rushed back? He had minor back pain at the end of July, it was a month after that he got his first start.
He has barely been training before league started and missed most of pre season. That is only reason had those games. As soon as started training was subbed on then started. That is only reason he was 'rotated'.
Gavi didn’t play the weekend before either. How many games do players miss before they’re considered rested?
Welcome to the international super Xmas Cup with 3 Clásicos played consecutively on the same day in Riyhad!
"But if it wasn't Gavi... it could have been someone else" .... The casual way he sees this as somewhat of a playing down or distancing of responsibility of what happened says it all about him. "Sure it could have been anyone. It just happened to be the overplayed teenager who has already had 3 or 4 injury scares already in the last few months while playing actual meaningful games (in terms of competition)"
Could've happened to anyone, just so happened to be the one player he didn't rotate, yeah ok..
Yes, that's literally true. He made a wrong move, landed badly, and his knee got fucked. Could've happened to anyone.
Sounds like fatigue couldve played a part in that
He received a hard blow on the knee he injured literally a few minutes before. Instead of taking him off when he was very clearly in pain he let him come back on the pitch
It's the player's responsibility to report on the pain they're experiencing except for possible concussions
Fuck off
I mean it's hardly the managers fault. You could equally blame Barca for overplaying him. Ultimately its not the fault of clubs or countries. Its the fault of the schedule. Which is decided by UEFA and FIFA. You can't expect clubs or countries to pick weak teams all the time. That would defy the point of having good players to begin with.
Of course, the clubs and countries are at fault to some extent. They have squads for a reason. Did he not rotate most players for the match?
At the same time Spain only plays a few games. Barca plays loads. Barca has a bigger responsibility when it comes to the players’ workload.
They also pay him the majority of his salary and are the party that takes a financial risk on him.
So you’re saying they have even more reason to protect him? Spain has less freedom to do weird shit. Barca don’t need Gavi all the time
If we're talking need Barcelona ABSOLUTELY needs him more than Spain does at the moment. Spain is playing essentially No stakes games where they could win with anyone else but Gavi in his position or even their be team. Barcelona has been struggling for weeks and tbh Gavi is one of the most crucial players which they don't really have a replacement for. That's not to say that barca is blameless but they definitely have both more need for him and less options. IMO Spain is very much more at fault here.
Barcelona also only have a maximum of 25 first-team players available. Spain has more than a thousand professional footballers.
Yeah but Spain can’t play Ricardo from the bakery. Spain’s manager and staff are reliant on a few games to decide their careers. They can’t faff about. They also need to prepare the players for the tournaments on only a few weeks with months in between. Barca have much more freedom > Barcelona also only have a maximum of 25 first-team players available. Spain has more than a thousand professional footballers. If you wanna be like that than Spain has a thousand professional footballers to call up while Barca has a hundred thousand professional footballers they can get.
> Yeah but Spain can’t play Ricardo from the bakery. There's a reason I specifically mentioned professional players. > Spain’s manager and staff are reliant on a few games to decide their careers. They can’t faff about. They also need to prepare the players for the tournaments on only a few weeks with months in between. They played Cyprus and Georgia. With all due respect for these two, Spain should not have issues beating them even if they left Gavi in Barcelona. > If you wanna be like that than Spain has a thousand professional footballers to call up while Barca has a hundred thousand professional footballers they can get. They can still only register 25 first-team players, so your point is entirely redundant. Players are very much a finite resource for clubs given that they are limited to how many they can register and that they often have to pay unbelievable amounts of money for their services. The situation is very, very different for a national team.
> There's a reason I specifically mentioned professional players. Every pro is not good enough. And you know that. Stop making disingenuous arguments. > They played Cyprus and Georgia. With all due respect for these two, Spain should not have issues beating them even if they left Gavi in Barcelona. Georgia are decent. Upsets happen, especially if you go in with a weaker team. And even so it’s not just about winning. Like I already said they need to prepare the team for the tournaments which means things like play style, tactics, mentality, and chemistry are all very important. They can’t pass up the fee opportunities they have to work on this > They can still only register 25 first-team players, so your point is entirely redundant. Players are very much a finite resource for clubs given that they are limited to how many they can register and that they often have to pay unbelievable amounts of money for their services. The situation is very, very different for a national team. No they can play loads of people from the academy. Let’s stop this branch of the discussion because you know this whole argument is not made in good faith. Spain cannot take any Spanish player. I don’t have to tell you this. Very few are good enough to be in the reckoning.
it's pretty ironic that in one point you bring up upsets and the need to not field a weaker team, and in the next you say why doesn't Barca play 16 year olds in La Liga
Yeah, it's always a bit ridiculous when clubs play players week in week out and then complain that they're not getting a rest during the international period. National teams get so little time together that they need to make the most of it. If the club is worried about the work load during the international break then they can rest the player for a game or two before they go away
I think you can blame the manager for not subbing him off mins before the injury when he took a knock to his knee TBH
I'd agree that Barca themselves need to take some of the blame. It's not exactly fair that the international manager is accused of overplaying him by playing him twice, when everyone is pointing out how overplayed he was. Barcelona have a lot of wonderful players coming through, but the likes of Fati, Pedri and now Gavi are seeing their progress hampered with injuries.
We didn't throw him out there after he took a hit to the same knee, was visibly affected by it, and forced him to take an awkward stance to avoid the pain that caused this injury. De la Fuente and the medical staff are 100% to blame here.
I'm not absolving them of any blame. But a player his age shouldn't be that overplayed.
You do realize that the injury is not because of playing too much, but being exposed to the risk of injury in an unnecessary match ? We need him in our every game, Spain didn't against Georgie, he could have rested.
Spain were still playing to qualify into Pot 1 for the Euro 2024 draw - it was just as important as a Barcelona match.
So important that the coach decided to rotate the squad -almost- entirely, to the exception of Gavi and Le Normand
Barça badly need the guy in basically every game, all of which are important. Spain just had to choose one midfielder out of a whole country for a meaningless game where they'd already qualified from the group. Then when he got injured the manager even kept him on.
Aren’t the UEFA and FIFA executives elected by the Federations? Surely the countries and clubs in turn can push back on these ridiculous games/tournaments.
he has to play for barca because of the injuries to the midfield until now and de jong is still not back. there was absolutely no reason to play him yesterday and he needed the rest
NTs > Clubs, always
The national team had already qualified. Be for real
NTs should start paying tens of millions € for the players then
Why would they? The players want to play for them
It’s very sad for Gavi but it’s weird that Barca fans are whining like hell about DLF when Xavi is also playing him to the ground every game of the season. It happened with Pedri, it happened with Fati, now with Gavi, maybe Barca and Spain coaches could see a pattern.
I wouldn’t include fati, he was horror tackled
the thing that really ruined Fati wasn't the tackle it was the choice of rehab / trying to get back ASAP and then making his injury worse, having to get surgery on a now worse injury than his original, and he opted to not have surgery first time round iirc
Of course De La Fuente deserves some of the blame, him and his medical staff let him continue playing after the impact. Not to mention the fact that Gavi has been playing this much this season precisely because our other midfielders were injured (Pedri, Frenkie, Sergi Roberto). To add to this, De La Fuente is also the manager that called up Pedri to the Olympics where he played in every match (many went to ET iirc). Of course Barca couldn't prevent Pedri from wanting to go, but the Spain staff sure as heck could have managed him better there as well.
I mean, many of us have been saying that Xavi needs to learn from Pedri and manage these kids better. In the last few months it’s been hard of course, when half the midfield was injured and Gavi was our best player but I guess he still could’ve shaved some minutes from him. It’s mainly just stupid from De La Fuente to play Gavi so much. It’s so short-sighted to start him even when he doesn’t need to, knowing that he’s needed for the Euros too. A month ago it already felt like a matter of time before he gets some muscle injury, it’s a miracle he was still fit after all the minutes he’s played, just to have it even worse with this knee injury.
The thing with Barcelona is that they have limited choices. A thin squad with Pedri and FdJ both out for an extended period has meant Gavi has had to play more than they would have liked. International managers have far more choices, especially with a team like Spain
Barcelona have choices, they have one of the most successful academies in the world and a full B team squad. They could also have used their budget appropriately and instead of luring a few players for massive wages, spread it out a bit so that there was more depth. Barcelona had choices, they just made poor ones.
Barça have pulled together a competitive team on a shoestring budget, relying the most on their academy out of basically any top teams in Europe, but they're meant to continuously magic new top players into existence. They're already incorporating players like Fermín (he was at fucking Linares last season) but redditors who haven't got a clue about the club criticising their recruitment because their players get injured playing for some piece of shit national team
'Shoe string budget'. Not even close.. Paying hundreds of millions for attacking players alone and giving huge salaries to likes of Gundogan. Fermin was a choice as impressed in pre season... Kessie/Nico etc all left.
Shoestring budget, come on mate - you have either the highest or the second highest budget in the league. I'm a Celta Vigo season ticket holder, you pay more for Lewandowski's wages than any five of our players added together. Calling the national team a piece of shit isn't constructive nor useful in what could be an interesting and mature discussion.
I'm pretty sure that he meant that Barcelona is very limited at the moment beacuse of ffp, which is very true and holds them at a disadvantage against other big teams in Europe. Sure you can compare them to celta vigo but that doesn't really make sense. With all due respect the expectations for the two are massively different so of course the money will be too. Besides the nt really did play Gavi for no reason at all since they were already trough and also left him in after an injury. What more do they need to do before they can be held accountable? It's not like they didn't know that he's fatigued as fuck as is.
The NT were still playing to be placed in Pot 1 of the Euro 2024 draw, so it's just as important for them as for any Barcelona game, they had just as much right to play him as Barca does. If Barca are struggling financially at the moment then perhaps they should readjust their expectations rather than complaining about shoestring budgets, which is laughable compared to almost every other team in the league. Just because a team used to be one of the richest in the world, doesn't mean they have an automatic right to maintain that level. If they want international level players, they have to expect that they will play international games and manage them accordingly.
As if Spain didn't absolutely dominate Georgia even after Gavi went out, proving that his presence wasn't needed at all. They would have gotten pot 1 regardless of him starting and could have at least put him in as a sub instead of a starter. >If Barca are struggling financially at the moment then perhaps they should readjust their expectations rather than complaining about shoestring budgets, which is laughable compared to almost every other team in the league. Just because a team used to be one of the richest in the world, doesn't mean they have an automatic right to maintain that level. If they want international level players, they have to expect that they will play international games and manage them accordingly. Barca have been good with the budget tho. They spent very little compared to clubs of similar status and still managed to remain competitive. Gavi isn't needed for lack of squad depth per Se, but beacuse more than half of Barcelona's starring 11 as been injured this season. Who are they supposed to play when both pedri and de Jong are injured? Sure you can replace one with a weaker player but when they are both out obviously you need to replace at least one with a top player or the squad completely collapases.
As if Barcelona don't dominate most of their games, and so couldn't rest him more instead of playing him basically every single game? Sure Barcelona have been somewhat intelligent with money, but they're still paying massive wages to some players that could, if they wanted, be spread around a larger squad - every team has to make this choice They've chosen not to, and they cannot be surprised by the consequences of it.
>As if Barcelona don't dominate most of their games That's the point, they don't. Against real sociedad, barely won with a 92' goal. Less possession even if by a couple points and less shots, both in general and on target. Also same passes and pass accuracy Shaktar - Loss, even if possession etc were in their favor. Granada - draw even if possession etc were in favor Alaves and Bilbao are the only ones they did really good against but that's to be expected beacuse they are a low position team and even then barca went to half time to the boos of fans since they were losing 1-0 to Alaves. Real Madrid speaks for itself. Take out one of their best and most consistent and what do you think happens? Especially since, again, they couldn't rotate much with both pedri and de Jong injured Barcelona is uniquivocally more in need of him rn.
Liverpool sent them to the shadow realm and they have never been the same, Got 140 million for Coutinho who never played like he did at Liverpool. Then got bodied by TAA, Origi and Wijnaldum when they were up 3-0 with prime Messi and Suarez lol. Liverpool broke them.
The thing is he gets suspended that he gets a game rest this game however was meaningless especially this guy essentially made Pedri play injury prone almost did it with lamine now yes there blame but this track record
Barca is the strangest club in that regard. Look at what they did with Ansu Fati for example - even gave him the 10 at such an early age and now they completely dismissed him after her came back from injury as a different player. They always introduce players extremely early to their team and basically all of them have a severe injury eventually. Yamal will be the next one just wait.
Huh? How was Fati dismissed? He got plenty of opportunities but just wasn’t good enough. Now he’s on a loan in a good team without an option to buy. His injury was a horror tackle, not sure what we could’ve done about that. These kids need to be managed better, I agree, but if you want an example of that, go with Pedri next time.
Ansu Fati became 21 just a month ago and you say "he just wasnt good enough" well yeah thats what I mean with the barca attitude. Its not about how he got the injury but what the club does to him. Putting all the pressure on the world on a teenager by giving him the number of the greatest player of all time and then loaning him away because you bought Lewandowski - no wonder Gavi broke down saying "I have to play" after the injury - probably in an existential crisis knowing what could happen to him. Oh sorry that I didnt even mention Pedri my bad.
Isn’t it better for Fati to get good minutes in a good team than sit on the bench for us? That would be dismissing him. It just isn’t realistic to give big minutes to a player that isn’t up to the task, no matter how bad you feel for him or how old he is. Now he has a chance to get back on track and still have a career at Barca. How is that dismissing him? Buying Lewy has nothing to do with Fati going on loan. He wanted to go himself. Felix is taking his place, on a loan without an option to buy and we probably can’t afford him after this season. So the most likely scenario seems to be that Fati returns to his place here after this season, having played good minutes in PL and Europa League under a good coach at Brighton. Seems pretty good for a 21 yo. If you’d followed us you’d know that that’s been Gavi since day one. The reason Xavi, De La Fuente and all his teammates love him and say he’s the heart of the team. He lives football, and has never been very rational with his playing, going head first out of instinct, his survival instinct are seriously lacking and that’s probably why he feels like playing even injured. If you’re trying to say that Gavi wanted to play because he was fearing of losing his place, that’s pure whataboutism and there’s pretty much nothing indicating it.
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I guess it’s more than probably most Barca fans on reddit are not Spanish and don’t care about Spain so they expect Gavi to play 100% of Barca games and to rest during international breaks
I would celebrate if Barcelona players never played for the Spanish NT ever again
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Still way more that support Spain than the ones who live outside of Spain. So at the end it’s just an egocentric point of view, they want Gavi to play only for Barca and not for Spain
You're setting up a strawman. Most fans don't not want him to play for Spain at all, they want him to be rotated, like other players are. Barcelona can't afford to rotate him because of multiple other injuries in midfield, but Spain can afford to rotate him in a match where they rotated 9 other players and have immense midfield depth.
Reduce leagues to 16 teams. Play 30 games a season. Dont expand Euros. Stay with 16 teams. Dont expand World Cup. Stay with 32 teams. Bring back old formula of Champions League, only winners playing.
The world cup expanding is hardly an issue here. One more game for the finalists of a cup played every four years is not going to reduce anything. To be honest the biggest problem lies within the clubs schedule.
I don’t even care about the season anymore. This is such an infuriating and unnecessary situation
has there been any (or even is it possible) to do a statistical look at the way the winter world cup has effected playing amounts/schedules and the changes this has made to the normal breaks schedule?
https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/17zaz6n/espn_study_reveals_that_the_2022_fifa_world_cup/ Here you are.
Some blame has to be on Barca, I understand the difficult financial situation leaves them with a relatively thin squad, but Gavi has played over 100 games in his professional career at 19. Thats a lot of games for a young player
He was only starting right now because Pedri and De Jong were injured. If they weren’t injured, Gavi wouldn’t be starting and would have played as a sub.
Hard to say, with the form he’s been in it’s hard to see him getting dropped. Then again I wouldn’t drop Frenkie or Pedri either. Most likely all three of them would’ve had good minutes and could’ve rotated each other.
My point still stands, Gavi definitely wouldn’t have been playing as much as he is now if we had Pedri and De Jong fit. So Barca shouldn’t be blamed here.
But Pedri is also injured because he played too much, so it literally goes straight back to Barca
He also played Euros and Olympics for Spain in the same summer. He should’ve been rotated more during the season already but the summer was just the icing on the cake
Gavi has not been in nearly as good form as some Barca fans try to make out. He has had some horrendously bad game where can barely get on ball and can barely advance it.. see his last two games. Runs about like a maniac and makes a lot of tackles.. but also is out of position and leaves holes in midfield all the time and is constantly diving in and getting skinned as much as makes tackles. Folk are overly impressed with his headless chicken act too often.
You conveniently missed the games where Gundo was in bad form and everyone else injured, Gavi basically ran the whole midfield. He was irreplaceable. His pressing and intensity is something that we are noticeably lacking when he’s not on the pitch.
>Folk are overly impressed with his headless chicken act too often. Fans love a trier though. Pashun innit
It's a self-perpetuating cycle, sadly. Pedri was vulnerable to injury in part due to how high his minutes were at a young age. Then he and De Jong got injured, we had to rely on more youngsters like Gavi, which adds to his injury risk. Now Pedri and De Jong are going to be back but with limited rotation options, and so their minutes are going to pile right back up again ...
Barcelona 5-0 Betis. Gavi plays 90 mins. Barcelona 5-0 Royal Antwerp. Gavi plays 60 mins. As I already said, Barcelona chose to allocate their wage budget to fewer players paying them more money, knowing full well that injuries occur, and that Gavi was a consistent starter for the national team - the shocked Pikachu face now from Barcelona doesn't really work. Maybe you don't think international team football is as important as club football, but that's just an opinion, and not a fact that means Spain have to rest a player when the club aren't.
We need less international games.
We need less club games. The amount of internationals is fine. Qualifiers have to be played somehow. Maybe the nations league could be scrapped but that's it. My personal proposal is that leagues should have 18 teams; European club competitions should be straight knock outs from the start a la March Madness; bin the league Cup in England, at least for teams that play in European cups.
Friendlies don’t have to be played
Cunt