Currently FIFA has matchdays in September (possibly starting in late August), October, and November that are long enough for 2 national team games each. My proposal to expand one of the matchdays to two weekends where players are not with their clubs during which time national teams could play up to 4 games. In exchange, one month would have the FIFA matchdays eliminated. Alternatively, there could be two periods of up to 3 national team games each, but 3 national team games might take players away from their clubs for as many weekends as 4 national team games would, so I'm not proposing that. I don't care which months from September through November are changed. I am not proposing any changes to the FIFA matchdays in March and June. The players would spend the same total amount of time away from their clubs. The advantage would be that players like Neymar and Messi whose national team and club are far apart would have to make two round trips across the Atlantic Ocean from September to November instead of three. http://resources.fifa.com/mm/docume...imc2014-2018fifaversionv29jan2016_neutral.pdf has the FIFA matchday schedule if you want to refer to it. Vote on whether you like FIFA's matchdays or my idea better.
I tend to agree. Besides saving on travel there is another big advantage coming out of your proposal: not having a FIFA break in early September. That particular int'l break is awkwardly timed as players are just getting comfortable at their clubs and then have to jet away to their NTs again after playing 2 domestic league matches with their clubs (I say 'again' because in many cases players were with their NT for a whole month or longer during the summer).
Personally, I'd prefer a third way: 2 weekend period in mid/late October for 4 international matches The same in March. Basically break the leagues into trimesters with two week breaks between. I'm not sure if this works for clubs/countries in less temperate climates though. I suspect we have the 2 match over 10-11 days to hedge against one part of the world getting their players at points in time that are disproportionately to hot, too cold, or in the middle of monsoon season. That may be why we have those early match dates right at the beginning of Euro club season.
The international calendar for the 2022 WC does have a three-week (fifteen-day), four-matchday block in June 2022, to accommodate the WC being played in December: http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/aff...c2018-2024fifa_15-02163_101_en_en_neutral.pdf
I can see people liking your idea, but I'd rather reduce the amount of group of international matches by 1, not 2. Your reference to "trimesters" works for leagues that go from August to May, but it wouldn't work for all leagues. MLS starts in March, and I don't think MLS would want two weeks of national team games then. My idea might not work due to UEFA and interconfederational playoffs. It wouldn't work to have four international matches in two weeks with the first two ending a group stage and the last two being against a playoff opponent decided a couple of days earlier that could be in a different part of the world.
The only concern I have (if you play two rounds of two-leg knockouts) is if you have a protest / disqualification afterwards: first two matchdays: Team A -def- Team B; Team C -def- Team D second two matchdays: Team A -def- Team C Later, Team A is found to have used a wrong player in its first-round matchup. Wha-da-ya-do? What is intriguing, though, is if you complete a group phase in that window, say a four-team, six-match group, where matchdays 3-4-5-6 are played in that block. That would be exciting to follow.
In addition to the issue of ineligible players, there wouldn't be much time to select stadiums and sell tickets for teams that hosted a game and depending on how they did could host another game less than a week later. I don't think it would be a good idea for national teams to play different rounds in one set of matchdays. Having four matchdays close together would work best for UEFA and CONMEBOL with one group stage that includes every team. In World Cup 2018 qualifying, it would have also worked for CONCACAF. In 2015 and 2016, CONCACAF used September and Novembers with no WCQs in October. In 2017 CONCACAF's Hexagonal will play Matchdays 7 and 8 in September and Matchdays 9 and 10 in October, with the October games not being contingent on the September games. The interconfederational playoff in November 2017 is contingent on the Hexagonal, but it would still be fine if Hexagonal Matchdays 9 and 10 were played in September. As long as there are playoffs after group stages in November, the easiest modification would be eliminating the October matchdays and making four matchdays in September. My guess is that the clubs who play from August through May would not want to play about 3 games before having two weeks of national team games, meaning that consecutive club games would be three weekends apart. In October 2016, CONCACAF will have Caribbean Cup qualifying. It might be strange to play qualifying for two tournaments in one set of matchdays, but it would still be possible because neither WCQs nor Caribbean Cup qualifying affects if you advance in the other one. The FIFA matchdays are determined years in advance, so if FIFA used my idea the confederations would have plenty of time to decide their qualifying formats and schedules. I just came up with another idea. I think it would make sense if the transfer window was entirely during the offseason rather than players playing a couple of games for a team not knowing if they will stay or be sold and loaned elsewhere. To reduce the amount of time between the start of the top leagues and the end of the transfer window, there could be two national team matchdays in mid-to-late August instead of in September. Then leagues would have to start later in August, but in exchange they wouldn't have to break for national team games until October.
Yeah. The trimester concept really only fits for traditional leagues. I do think the biggest problem with the clustering concept you're proposing in general is that it may not be friendly to global weather patterns. Cluster 4 matches in October, and that may be at the peak of monsoon season in one region. Cluster in November, February, etc and it may be a problem elsewhere. Hurricane events could wipe out a field for weeks in October too. If fields are underwater for a month, it would be very difficult to find replay dates for so many matches. I think this is the primary rationale for sprinkling dates all over the calendar. The only way around this that I can see is to cull the fields a bit more quickly early on. Most of the countries that have bigger climate concerns in mid Fall or mid Spring when clustering might fot are those that are third - fifth tier soccer countries anyway. There aren't nearly as many of these countries in the top 80 or so teams that are the meat of the qualifying process.
I think it is too drastic of a change for the South American managers and players. Having to worry about 2 teams per month is something Managers are accustomed to when it comes to World Cup qualifying. Having to worry about playing in the heat of one climate and the altitude on another climate and the possible cold/cool weather of another climate within a condensed amount of time is a bit too worrisome for higher ups not to mention the safety of players.