Liverpool’s 2 matches in 24 hours illustrate dangerous demand on modern players

Liverpool playing twice in the span of a day on two different continents exemplified the creeping demands placed on modern soccer players.

If ever an illustration was needed of the demands placed on the modern soccer player, it came this week with Liverpool playing two games with two different squads on two different continents within 24 hours.

There was quite literally no way for the Anfield outfit to accommodate both their Carabao Cup and Club World Cup fixtures. Clubs are now expected to play so much soccer that it is has reached the point of incompatibility.

Jurgen Klopp has long been outspoken on the number of fixtures top players now have to fulfill.

“We sit here and it sounds like I am having a moan or whatever,” he said in the summer as Liverpool started their preseason seriously depleted following the international exerts of many of their key players. “It is just the situation, in the long-term, is not acceptable. In the future, we have to change that. It looks like nobody can imagine a week without football in the year. When did that happen? A game again, a game again.”

Five months later his argument was put into stark relief by his own team’s situation.

Klopp found a solution this time – playing a team of youngsters lead by the U-23 coach in the Carabao Cup and taking the first team himself to Qatar – but he obviously has a point. Between the packed schedule during the season and the international tournaments and preseason competitions that are stretching further and further into the summer, elite soccer players are being run into the ground.

For athletes, particularly at the top of their sport, rest and recuperation is key, but soccer seems to have lost sight of this. This week, with Liverpool in Birmingham and Doha at the same time, provided a stark depiction of this fundamental problem.

Klopp certainly isn’t the only top level figure to speak out about soccer’s number of fixtures. Pep Guardiola has long followed a similar train of thought, stating that there should be “less fixtures, less competitions and more recovery.” He has made this point more than once since arriving in England from Germany, where the Bundesliga takes close to a full month off over Christmas and New Year, underlining the importance of time off to his players.

This season will mark the introduction of a Premier League winter break for the first time, with the weekends of Feb. 8 and 15 left fixture free. Guardiola’s repeated comments over a number of years seemingly applied some form of pressure. In theory, this could allow players to rest and recuperate for the second half of the campaign. The knock-on effect could even stretch as far as the summer’s European Championships.

But elsewhere the trend is towards more fixtures, not less. Look to Spain, for instance, and this season will mark the first time the Spanish Supercopa has featured four teams rather than just two. Indeed, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Valencia will travel to Saudi Arabia in January to contest a mini-tournament, with three games to be played midway through the season instead of the usual two as the traditional curtain raiser.

Then there’s the Club World Cup which, starting in 2021, will feature 24 teams from six different confederations. The new format will see a full competition format adopted with eight groups of three teams funneling into quarterfinals, semifinals and then a final. If Klopp is unhappy with having to travel to Qatar to play two extra games this year, just wait until he finds out how many fixtures Club World Cup participants will have to play if the Reds make it back in 2021.

The European Championships grew from 16 teams to 24 teams between 2012 and 2016 with an extra knockout round added, and the men’s World Cup will grow to 48 teams for the 2026 tournament. The format for the latter is still to be finalized, but just like with the Euros, an extra knockout round is almost certain to be added.

At some stage there will be detrimental effect to the product being offered as elite level athletes reach their breaking point. Players can only take so much, so many fixtures. Soccer could potentially eat itself through its own greed. With every fixture that is added to the schedule it takes another bite out of itself.