FIFA International Match Calendar: Proposed Changes & General Discussion

They might need to include Copa Intermedio.

 

Yep, the latter. Gotta celebrate the 100-yr anniversary of the FIFA world championship or whatever it was called back then. Maybe invite four teams, two groups of 7, top six advance.

 

Maybe managers can tinker with the bottom half of the squad but the main guys are going to get called every tournament. And its these guys that play most of the minutes too.

It's not like Spain isn't going to call up Pedri for the Euros because he had a grueling season. Not only that, but they called him up for the Olympics too! And barring injury, you can bet your house that he'll get called up for the Nations League final 4 tournament this Fall too.

And it has to be this way. Without the top players getting called up for every tournament, int'l football would become pointless.

 

The issue is not if those players get called up every tournament, The issue is if a manager is going to put too much pressure on them to play way too many minutes until they fall apart as people around here naively think will happen.
Good managers know what their players can take and how much they can do. They are not going to overuse them.
And in the case of Colombia they did not even call up James Rodriguez for example. Same with Chile and Sanchez.

 

Alexis Sanchez was injured. Now he's being rushed back from injury to play in the knockout stage.

 

James was injured too.
But both James and Sanchez wanted to play the Group stage.

 

Ok, but these are not examples of a manager rotating the squad from one tournament to the next so that his players can remain fresh. They weren't called because they were injured (at least at the time of the initial call up)

 

The James example is an example of keeping him fresh. He wanted to play and the coach left him off the sqaud.

Sanchez wanted to play in the Group stage but his manager said no.

The point is a good manager is not going to make his players lose his legs just for a tournament like this. They have the bigger picture in mind usually.

 

The thing is, neither Alexis nor James has played much football the past 2-3 years. They can't be "losing their legs".

I think you need to find better examples.

 

Nah.

It was not because of the tournaments James lost his legs or being over worked by Colombia's managers.

 

I'm not saying it was. Just pointing-out that Alexis was riding the Man Utd bench for 2-3 years so its just a bad example to use in a discussion about over-worked players.

NT managers pick their squad based on the current form of players and how they think they will effect the chemistry of the national team. They couldn't give two shits if they run a player into the ground as long as the player can still perform at 100% for the next 6 or 7 games. Because being a NT manager is generally a short-term job. Its all about the next tournament for them.

 

GOOD National Team managers know that there is a 4 year cycle they have to take into account. The main tournament is at the end of the cycle called the World Cup.
They usually have a good pulse on their players and their needs and their health. They are not going to run players into the ground in a tournament like this (Copa America) if they know there are more important qualifiers and hopefully a World Cup to play in at the end of the cycle.

IT is all about balance and keeping things going with high maintenance over a 4 year window.

 

Not likely .

 

I kinda agree with Wenger. It is what many fans want. Especially a market like the USA that they can tap into for more cash. Most people in the USA still do not care about soccer UNLESS it is a World Cup. Then (almost) everyone gets into it.

As for fitting it in properly where there is a will there is a way.

 

If wonder if Wenger would still have that opinion if he was still coaching at Arsenal... or at any club (?)

 

Depends.
Double the World Cup exposure would give Double the chances for players to get scouted on the biggest stage. Would be valuable for selling to bigger Clubs like Madrid and such.
Arsenal would cash in.

 

Expanded Club World Cup and Two World Cups would be lots of cashing.

 

The way it can happen is a "Winter" World Cup during the years of the Summer Olympics.

Of course, it would take a heck of a lot of logistical changes to Club competitions and Qualifying schedules which would be a headache but as I said where there is a will there is a way.

 

And Univision and FOX Sports keep on ponying up the cash for these Gold Cups as well.