Trying To Find The Common Denominator; Or: The Curse of the Premier League Trophy.

June 8th, 2010 | by: chris |

barclays-premier-league-trophy

Each day for the last two weeks or so I’ve woken up, done something mildly productive, sauntered to the general vicinity of a laptop and gone to the guardian’s World Cup page with one question: “which star went down today?”. Each day I go with the same hope of Chuckie Sullivan at Will Hunting’s door – the hope of nothing – but hope, as you may know, is the most devious of foul-letter words, and someone typically winds up hurt.

As with curses, we want to know why so as to avoid doing the same.

I’ve pondered the reasons behind, and most center around the media because as anyone knows: the media’s to blame for everything. The Vanity Care cover has done no favors – why would they take out Drogba instead of the world’s most detested player, Cristiano? – and the Am I Collective murals are of equal help, but a few sentences this morning triggered something:

There was David Beckham’s tendon tear back in March, there’s Michael Essien’s messed up knee, Michael Ballack’s ankle, Rio Ferdinand’s knee ligaments, Lassana Diarra with complications from sickle-cell anemia, and many more. Portugal’s Nani joined those guys on the definitely out of action list today with a collarbone injury. On top of that you’ve got Didier Drogba’s fractured forearm, Andrea Pirlo’s questionable calf and Arjen Robben’s hamstring injury.

Another name comes in the form of John Mikel Obi, which has come as a severe blow to those who were looking forward to rearranging his name for a week or so.

Injuries happen, particularly when so much heavy training is instituted amidst games in the weeks before a World Cup. However, this year has gone above and beyond, particularly with the stars, the names in lights. If we’d heard that Heiko Westermann, Rene Adler, Jozy Altidore and whomever else had wound up injured, it’d be business as usual. And thus there are the stars.

Going back to the trigger, the obvious link is Chelsea, but that’s not it – at least not entirely. There’s also the factor of Manchester United with Rio, David and Nani present, so it evolves into something of a Manchester United and Chelsea curse. This might lead one to believe Michel Platini is bounding around World Cup training pitches piping players in the knee in a “Just Say No To Child Trafficking” t-shirt. We cannot rule this out.

But the curse most rooted in practicality, outside of Andrea Pirlo (clearly there just to throw us off the scent), comes in that every single one of those players has lifted the Premier League trophy, either with ManU or Chelsea. Rio, David, Ballack, Mikel, Drogba, Robben, Eddien, Nani. All Premier League winners, all have hoisted the trophy, all some of the biggest names in the world.

Today it’s merely theory, but wait until tomorrow, or the next day, when the latest name off the injury assembly line is stuck at home watching the games with the Premier League winner’s medal in the cabinet next to the television.

Or just wait until Wayne Rooney’s inevitable broken metatarsal.

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seadcon

Where on Earth do you start…

This article, though comical in its nature, does highlight a huge problem in football. The amount of games being played at club level has spiraled out of control and now, as it has
always been destined to do, it is impacting on the international game.

When the FIFA World Cup finishes on July 11th, it will be just two weeks until clubs from the English Premier League begin preparations for the upcoming football season. They will play friendly matches in far and distant places to spread their clubs legacy. Then, it's the qualifiers for the major European and Domestic competitions. Then, right at the crack of August, we dive into another season.

FIFA are there to protect the integrity of the game and they need to start getting their hands muddy and sorting this out.

Whether these are practical or not, they serve as highlights of areas that COULD at the very LEAST be discussed by FIFA.

- Players are paid too much. Cap the transfer fees and cap their wages.
- Players are being forced to play too many games. Cap the amount of appearances that are allowed.
- Clubs are in too much debt. Can't afford the player up front? Don't sign them! None of this get the player now and pay later rubbish.
- Squads are too small. Increase the number of players allowed in teams and insist on a minimum that can be used.
- Force squad rotation.
- Stop TV being the priority. Games should be played on Saturdays. Not Fridays and Sundays.
- Limit the amount of games played in quick succession. There should be 5 days between EVERY fixture.

FIFA need to pull their finger out and start doing some serious work, instead of simply sitting on the fence and letting the beautiful game implode on itself.
sandra350

seadcon's point about there being too many games is spot-on but along with that is FIFA's (typical) refusal to adapts its rules to a dramatically changing game.

Many years ago a 23 man squad was good enuf for the world cup. Today, the restriction to 23 men at such a huge tournament with 32 countries is ridiculous given that it comes so soon after a very long season for most of the players. This is esp. true of the best players because they've played in most or all of the competitions on offer. Players today are playing a ridiculous amount of games — esp. in England, which has no Christmas break.

That, plus the fact that the game is now much faster than it used to be, the players' boots are lighter – which means they don't protect against injury like the heavier ones used to. Players now run an average of more than 6 miles per game, ffs. Not like the old days at all.

I'm particularly worried about Maicon, Julio Cesar and Lucio as they've all had very little rest since winning 3 competitions. It shouldn't be surprising that Robben went down in a friendly as he too started in every game in 3 competitions and went to the very end of each one of them.

FIFA should simply change the restriction to a 23 man squad to reflect the realities of the modern game and the demands of the club competitions that end so close to the start of the tournament.