Beginning of the End for International Friendlies?
Arsene Wenger was busy predicting the end of international friendlies today. After watching his native France beat England 1-0 at the Stade de France you’d think he’d feel at least a little positive. But apparently not:
“I am scared that in the modern game, there is no room any more for friendly internationals - not because countries take our players, just because people will not be interested in that any more,” he said. “There is nothing at stake. People want to see competitive games. Maybe I am completely wrong but in the end you get people to travel and it is good as an experiment for a manager to work on things. But, is it in the long term feasible for people to travel and spend their money to watch this kind of game? I am not sure.”
Now obviously Wenger is at least a little biased. As a club manager with all kinds of international players, these midweek games aren’t exactly his best friend. And you could definitely take issue with his comment about the feasibility if asking fans to pay and watch.
There were 78,500 at the France vs England game last night, while 60,021 also flocked to Arsenal’s own Emirates Stadium to see Brazil beat Sweden 1-0 (and this goal from Pato.)
We also saw some excellent football yesterday. Take a look at the Netherland’s dramatic 4-3 win over Austria if you don’t believe me.
More importantly, something other than qualifiers and tournaments has to exist. Teams can’t just launch into all-important games with no preparation, no chance to play together, no chance to see how fresh players perform on the international stage. Can they?
Wenger has suggested replacing friendlies with training camps, but that wouldn’t replicate a match situation. How can you blood a youngster for international football in a training camp?
The problem seems to be that the sense of occasion that used to make internationals so exciting has gone. Before there was the Champions League, before domestic and foreign football was easily accessible via television and the internet, international games were rare and exotic. The phrase “only a friendly” was very rarely used, and players didn’t pull out en masse with suspicious injuries.
But now that phrase is used every time friendlies roll around, and it feels like every other player worth watching pulls a hamstring as a non-competitive international matchday approaches. So international football needs to act sooner rather than later.
The problem now is that international friendlies stand alone and mean nothing. There are no consequences for a defeat, nothing gained with a win. So I’d be in favour of shaking things up so that something is at stake in every game. Maybe a series of mini-tournaments could be organized, maybe a series of mini-international leagues that last one season. Maybe the qualification process could be expanded so that all games are competitive.
I’m sure there all kinds of reasons why those ideas won’t work, and I’m sure Sepp Blatter would love to laugh in my face and tell me why. But if something doesn’t change in the next few years then Arsene Wenger could be proved right and international football will be nothing but qualification, tournaments and training camps.
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Comments
By Ian Rose | March 27th, 2008 at 5:28 pm 
It seems to me like it’s more productive to talk about how to spice up friendlies, rather than just calling for the end of a tradition as old as football. For me, I’d rather see something like the Home Championships return, regional “friendly” tournaments between teams that legitimately don’t like each other. The fans are interested, and so are the players. That having been said, I love friendly dates, and I hope they continue at least as long as I live.
By lefutur | March 28th, 2008 at 9:53 am does FIFA count friendlies in the world team rankings?
By Daryl | March 28th, 2008 at 10:09 am Yes, but they’re worth much fewer points than qualification or tournament games.
By Ian | March 28th, 2008 at 12:11 pm The interesting thing to me about friendlies and FIFA world rankings is that even though a win or a draw in a friendly is worth far less than a win or a draw in a tournament (as it should be, I think), a loss is just as damaging no matter what sort of game it is. A zero is a zero, and because the FIFA rankings average the ratings from games played over the last year, two years, three years and four years, zeros really bring down averages. There’s a lot of games in four years (25ish) and so each one doesn’t make a huge effect, but Italy’s overall score will certainly go down this month. Probably not enough for Spain to catch them for third place, though.
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