2023-12-11 07:50:14
In the Metropolitano the athletic parish looks with suspicion at ‘Profe’ Ortega for the plague of injuries that affects the squad, while the Real Madrid fans, whose chest swells when talking about the Pintus Method, has also twisted its expression in the face of the accumulation of injuries that the white locker room has added in recent times. But The reality is that neither the Argentine nor the Italian coach is to blame for what is happening. Rather, they are victims of a hellish schedule that is wreaking havoc on the players they coach.
In fact, today, the work sessions of the First Division squad are more preventive than anything else. It is about conditioning the players with recovery or activation days to prevent muscle discomfort from multiplying or trying to heal injuries with hardly any time between games.
26 games in four months and 26 injured
Last November 23 Real Sociedad and Betis were the two teams that accumulated the most games at the start of the season with 18 games played (League, Cup and European competitions), which is equivalent to 1620 minutes of play. Between that day and December 21, the last day of the League of the year, They will play eight more to add a total of 26 in four months. They will have played weekends and weekdays from then until the Christmas holidays.
And the same can be attributed to Real Madrid, Atlético or Barcelona, with the exception that they have not played Copa del Rey matches as they are exempt from playing in the Spanish Super Cup, a competition that they will play in Saudi Arabia after Christmas. Courtois, Militao, Vinicius, Tchouameni, Camavinga, Bellingham, Modric, Mendy, Alaba, Arda Güler and Carvajal are or have passed through the infirmary at the Bernabéu. Lemar, Savic, Barrios, De Paul, Oblak, Giménez, Koke, Memphis, Vitolo, Soyuncu, Morata and Reinildo, at Atlético. Ter Stegen, Araujo, Christensen, Iñígo Martínez, Balde, Koundé, Pedri, De Jong, Lewandowski, Lavine and Gavi have all fallen at Barça at some point. Lists extendable to all First Division teams, especially those that play in European competition, be it Champions, Europa League or Conference, when playing matches during the week and on weekends. So, Betis has suffered 26 injuries in this first quarter, Real Sociedad has had 24, up to 22 have had the Atlético and with 19 appear Real Madrid and Barcelona
Added to this, at least in this first quarter of the season, are the selection windows, in which, in addition, the arrival of Luis de la Fuente It has greatly diversified the calls, distributing the weight among more teams. Players from Madrid or Barcelona no longer dominate the lists, now it is those from Real Sociedad who rule, but there are also players from Osasuna, Atlético, Granada, Girona, Athletic or Sevilla. Far from resting, footballers accumulate more trips, with the physical stress that this entails, and injuries occur such as those suffered by Gavi, Marco Asensio or Nico Williams.
Advertising trips, awards…
And sometimes lightning trips like the one he had to take are added to that Last week Jude Bellingham went to Turin to collect the ‘Goldeboy’ award for the best young player of the season. Trip that the Englishman made after feeling upset in the match that Madrid played against Naples, in which he threatened to be substituted at half-time and ended up playing the entire game. Eduardo Camavinga also arrived injured by plane, after Dembelé fell on his leg during training with France and caused a tear in the external lateral ligament of his right knee.
All this frenetic pace in the infirmary has come to claim victims such as the head of Real Madrid’s medical services, the Croatian Nico Mihic, whose management of the treatment of Arda Güler’s meniscus injury and tune-up ended up costing him his life. sudden dismissal by exhausting the patience of the white board after their continuous relapses.
Pep Guardiola verbalized the problem after losing De Bruyne before the last Euro Super Cup: “Times have changed a lot. You see how many crusaders there have been at the beginning of the season. They make you travel to Asia and America for business reasons, They make you play very tough matches against very strong rivals on fields in poor conditions… and people fall, fall and fall again. I remember my first year at Barça: we had 25 days to work until we played the first game… Today there are no vacations and now they are organizing a Club World Cup with 24 teams. There is no summer or rest for the players…”
If, in addition to playing many games, The calendars are made without giving facilities to the footballers, so the problem becomes more acute. Real Madrid, for example, was counting on playing on December 20 against Alavés in order to give the players one more day off. But LaLiga has scheduled the match on Thursday the 21st at 9:30 p.m. In addition to losing that day, since it is so late they cannot take advantage of the last flights of the day to travel with their families to their countries of origin to see their families. To South America, for example, trips are at night, so you will have to wait until the 22nd at the end of the day to travel. On the 27th they will be back to restart the activity, since they will play on January 3 against Mallorca at 7:15 p.m. the match corresponding to matchday 19.
To make matters worse, the 21st is the day designated by the Court of The Hague to rule on the Super League case, so the team will play after hearing the verdict, something that has not gone down well in the upper echelons of the Bernabéu. A calendar that the clubs do not like, that squeezes the players and that has saturated football viewers who pay less and less attention to it on television.
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