There was a moment towards the end of Real Madrid’s match at Real Mallorca on Sunday evening that illustrated where football is heading right now.
Having seen Rodrygo’s early opener cancelled out by Vedat Muriqi’s thunderous header, Carlo Ancelotti’s side pressed for the goal which would silence the crowd inside Son Moix and ensure their La Liga defence got off to the perfect start.
Los Blancos enjoyed plenty of the ball as the clock ticked down, but the winner which would once have felt inevitable never came close to materialising.
With two minutes plus stoppage-time remaining, Jude Bellingham’s number went up and he trudged off to be replaced with Arda Guler.
It felt significant because, last season, the Englishman was just coming to life around that time. He bagged two last-minute winners against Barcelona amid a raft of late, late shows. Remarkably, 15 of his 23 goals in a staggering debut season in the Spanish capital came in the second half of games.
Not for a second on Sunday, though, did you believe that Ancelotti had withdrawn Bellingham prematurely. Madrid’s No 5 may be young and supremely fit but he was absolutely spent.
Jude Bellingham looked a spent force long before he was taken off in the 88th minute
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As he wearily took his seat on the bench, you couldn’t help but recall what we’d seen in the Euros this summer. Bellingham provided one of the tournament highlights with a spectacular overhead kick winner against Slovakia yet looked increasingly lethargic game-by-game in Germany. And England’s star man was by no means alone in that regard.
Supposedly a summer celebration of everything that’s good about the game, the tournament never really got going because too many of its stars were so clearly fatigued. Everywhere you looked, the minds of the greats were willing, but their bodies were weak.
And here we are — in what feels like a blink of an eye — poised to do it all over again. If players like Bellingham — just 21 years old and in the care of the best medics — are evidently struggling with the ludicrous demands of the modern-day game, what chance do the 30-somethings have?
The bad news for those of us who believe that less football is more is that FIFA and UEFA evidently don’t want to accept that. Expecting players to perform to optimal levels while routinely featuring in more than 50 games per season is unreasonable.
The very governing bodies which claim to exist for the good of the game are, in fact, now destroying it. They have no concern for quality — only the quantity of money to be generated from TV.
You can already watch matches live seven days a week from all corners of the globe from the comfort of your living room. The urge to constantly expand and invent new tournaments is motivated purely by greed.
Bellingham visibly faded the longer Euro 2024 went on and he was anonymous in the final
With 15 European Cups in their trophy cabinet and one Kylian Mbappe now on their books, sympathy for Madrid is normally in short supply.
Their potential schedule for the new campaign, though, does feel like the point where the gravy train carrying FIFA and UEFA’s executives accelerates away from the point of sanity for good.
Ancelotti’s men have already played against Atalanta in the European Super Cup Final in Warsaw. Sunday’s match in the Balearics was the first of 38 matches in La Liga. They’ll play at least another eight games in the revamped Champions League and as many as 15 if they take their customary place in the final.
Then there’s potentially eight games in the Copa del Rey, two more in the Spanish Super Cup plus the Intercontinental Cup Final. But here’s the kicker; Next summer sees the expansion of FIFA’s Club World Cup.
Staged in the USA between June 15 and July 13, it will see 32 teams from across the globe slug it out across a group stage and four knockout rounds.
Were Madrid to go the distance in each of the seven competitions they enter, they’ll play 72 matches in 334 days. For context, their previous record is 66 back in 2001-02. Given their players are invariably full internationals, there’s easily another 10 matches to go on top of that already back-breaking schedule. Little wonder Don Carlo is having to consider giving players mid-season holidays.
Real Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti could be facing a 72-game season over the next 11 months
‘Having trips such as the Club World Cup, FIFA dates in between, it is impossible to play 72 games,’ said Dani Carvajal, himself having been unable to have a proper rest and a pre-season after Spain’s win in Germany.
‘Those in South America have to do 12 hours (travel) there and back again when on international duty) … our body becomes saturated,’ warned Uruguay international Federico Valverde.
Compared to Madrid, the schedule of top Scottish Premiership players is light, but it is still potentially arduous.
Celtic, for example, might expect to play around 55 competitive matches between now and May. With no winter break, you can understand why skipper Callum McGregor has drawn a line under his international career. Younger players such as Bellingham are less likely to take that option.
With player welfare clearly not something that concerns the great and the good, there is at least some practical resistance being offered to the madness.
Last month, European leagues including the SPFL teamed up with global players’ union FIFPRO to launch legal action against FIFA over its ‘abuse of dominance’ in the game.
FIFA supremo Gianni Infantino has shown little appetite to quell the growing concerns
Set to be lodged with the European Commission, the complaint — on behalf of 39 leagues and 1,130 clubs in 33 countries — will seek to protect the welfare of players.
Claiming the calendar was now ‘beyond saturation’, ‘unsustainable for national leagues’ and a ‘risk for the health of players’, FIFPRO warned: ‘Legal action is now the only responsible step for European leagues and player unions to protect football, its ecosystem and its workforce.’
This legal move followed another lodged at a Belgian court in June in which FIFPRO began to challenge the legality of FIFA’s decision to ‘unilaterally set the international match calendar’.
With characteristic arrogance, FIFA president Gianni Infantino last month described the prospect of the legal row as a ‘futile debate’, claiming his organisation are working well within their rights.
Back in May, Maheta Molango, chief executive of the PFA and a FIFPRO board member, said players could strike if they continue to be overworked.
Both legal cases are likely to run and run. And so too, thanks to the game’s so-called guardians riding roughshod over player welfare, will its increasingly exhausted stars.