It's an odd one. Folks are not taking it seriously. Where is Liverpool? where is Barthelona? It is not considered to be a real tournament. . . until the games start being played and well you start watching it and then it will be a great idea.
The issue for this type of tournament is always timing. If they could catch the participants in season form it would make more sense but the leagues time and distance makes it too difficult.
I would rather we weren't being forced into this, there is a possibility it could derail our season next year.
Yea I get that but 50 mill just to enter is hard to pass up and we do have a very large squad that can handle the games. Unlike years past where a mgr would eventual stick to just their core players Enzo is truly going two squads for the different comps with a little overlap.
The money is hard to pass up for sure but ultimately the Premier League is the 'bread and butter' of football for me and I don't want a season ruined by a pre-season month long (or however long it takes) jolly up...........................I know I'm probably being a little melodramic but I can't help it - this CWC thing annoys me. I wouldn't mind if we could use it as a way of bedding in youngsters or something but it seems we won't be permitted to.
Sure but if we send our B/C team then it shouldn’t really matter. Regardless it’s happening, just means we need to potentially rotate earlier than normal next year and that will be an issue regardless as we’re likely looking at UCL and our stars will be playing mid week and more B team mixed into the EPL season.
Rest Palmer, play Felix. Rest Sancho and Neto, play the South American wonder kids. etc. sounds alright to me.
Yea I’m torn, id prob take Palmer but would play him more as a super sub. Same with the other A guys. I think we should try and win it. We need to get back to way of Chelsea any and every piece of silverware. Just looking at minutes to this point, we don’t have a player that’s played as much as City’s top 6, Pools top 8, or Arsenals top 8. Season is young but we’re definitely rotating and our players should be fresher for it. We will keep this up again next year. Even with the shortened offseason it won’t be as bad with Enzo going into year 2.
I guess the question is what you expect from a preseason and what else we have planned for this summer if anything. This tournament could be a better pre-season we've had the past several seasons. Last summer we played 5 friendlies in the US in July. This summer the games will start in June and most teams in the tournament will get 3-4 games. The two clubs that make the final will have played 7 games total. I read somewhere the winners purse could be up to $100m. Chelsea have an infamously large and deep squad so I think this tournament is great for us. I get the hatred for the Club WC. Of course its a money-grab as is everything in modern football. But I think its going to be good entertainment. We don't often see games like Bayern playing Boca Juniors or PSG against Botafogo. I almost never get to see clubs from CAF or AFC and very rarely see Brazilian or Argentinian teams play, so I'm looking forward to it.
The issue in the past has been around European teams not taking it serious and finding a balance of when each team is still in season form vs preseason. These get fixed and the tournament will be a lot more exciting to watch.
They're still not 'taking it serious', FIFA is slowly ruining English football for me, this, Winter world cups 'Super Leagues' or whatever they propose to call the bloody thing now..........I don't want it.
I know you don’t like it but it doesn’t change whether the teams take it seriously or not. I think Chelsea will though. Historically teams haven’t but if that changes it will certainly make things more interesting. Timing of scheduling will always be difficult though.