Opinion | football
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Why international breaks should be abolished
picture: imago images/Bagu Blanco
Just as things were looking up, the season in the Bundesliga was interrupted again. Why this is really annoying and also counterproductive. By Ilja Behnisch
The following scenario: You’ve been looking forward to your favorite band’s performance all summer. We re-listened to all 27 albums that had already been released, considered the set list and the list of background singers, and received daily updates on the health of the lead guitarist, who was prone to alcoholism.
And then he came. The big evening. Not every note is right, the acoustics of the hall affected the ticket price of 80 euros, but it doesn’t matter, it’s your favorite band, everything is great. Direct: what is that? There is another band on stage? After two songs? And again after six songs?
Sounds stupid? Welcome to football.
Only rarely gives money
It is then called an international break, this terrible situation. And that’s where it starts, because what kind of weird word is that? International break. As if football was taking a break to give the stage to international games, which are not football as such. However, given the last ten years of the German national football team, one could make a definite guess.
On the other hand, international breaks are also the perfect expression. On the clumsy lack of imagination that characterizes the world’s football associations. To generate more and more money, more and more games and competitions are being organized. The same applies to sport: If you want to be known, make yourself rare.
The Olympics, the World Cup and the European Championships? Held every four years. The regular season of the National Football League in the USA, crowned each year by the Superbowl, one of the biggest single sporting events in the world? The game lasts 17 days. And runs through. They are not bothered by any international matches, during which the stars of the industry far too often get injuries that they didn’t even know existed until then. And something that survived again just in time for the end of the international break.
Routines are important
Be honest: Do you know who has won three Nations League finals so far? Even. And of course, football is still unpredictable enough for that, the German national team may win the world championship title in the summer of 2026 and the national coach Julian Nagelsmann will say with tears of joy into the microphone altar at his feet: “Begin all in Zenica, in the international break October 2024.” But disrupt the Bundesliga for that?
Routines are important. Routines promote health, efficiency and skill development. Routines provide support. It’s bad enough that a single Bundesliga match day sometimes has more start times than the King of Beer on Mallorca. But even in these times, at least one thing should remain the same: Saturday, 3:30 pm, it’s the Bundesliga.
As a football fan, you don’t need to be in the stadium or in front of the TV. As a football fan you just have to know: things happen as they go. Or as The Smiths sang: “There’s a light that never goes out.” Unless it’s the international break.
Broadcast: rbb | 24 Inforadio, October 14, 2024, 8 pm