Kevin de Bruyne has been critical of recent UEFA Nations League match scheduling.
Kevin de Bruyne has been granted permission to leave the Belgium national team camp a few days early in order to begin his much-needed summer vacation.
The Red Devils are scheduled to play Poland on Tuesday in the final round of UEFA Nations League fixtures, but the Manchester City star has been granted permission to sit out the game after a long and arduous season. De Bruyne has barely paused to catch his breath since the pandemic-affected 2019/20 season resumed in August 2020 with Project Restart.
The league’s resumption was seamlessly followed by Nations League fixtures and the start of the 2020/21 season, a 40-game campaign in which the midfielder suffered several facial fractures in the Champions League final. He overcame that to represent his country at EURO 2020 just a few weeks later, where he suffered an ankle injury that severely hampered his pre-season and forced him to miss the first month of City’s 2021/22 season.
Following his recovery from Covid-19 in December, he appeared in 31 of City’s 36 games before joining his national team just a week after winning the Premier League title. In short, De Bruyne has played a lot of football in the last two years, which makes his recent criticism of UEFA’s new(ish) tournament completely understandable.
“The Nations League is unimportant in my opinion,” De Bruyne said ahead of Belgium’s match against the Netherlands on June 3. “[They are] just glorified friendlies at the end of a long and difficult season.” It is not something I am looking forward to.
“We can talk about vacation or rest as players, but we have no say in the matter. Every year, we take a little more than three weeks off.”
While De Bruyne may have let his frustrations show in his comments — the Nations League has been a success, with fewer meaningless, boring friendlies clogging the calendar — he is correct to criticize the timing of recent internationals.
With the World Cup not until November, this summer provided the ideal opportunity for players to rest and allow minor injuries to heal ahead of what will be a long and crowded 2022/23 season. Squeezing an entire World Cup into the middle of the domestic season will undoubtedly have an impact on player welfare.
Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk agreed with De Bruyne, saying that the Nations League is increasing the number of pointless friendlies rather than decreasing them. He correctly observed that four national team matches would not normally follow the season.
Gareth Bale was of a similar opinion. He told reporters that De Bruyne could play 79 matches next season between club and country, a frankly unhealthy amount of games.
“It’s too much; things clearly need to change,” the Welshman said. “Every player will tell you that there are far too many games, and that it is impossible to play at a high level in so many. People’s bodies can’t handle that kind of calendar year after year, so there will be consequences in the long run.”
De Bruyne, Van Dijk, and Bale are all fine: elite footballers are playing far too much football with insufficient recovery time in between games.
De Bruyne is within his rights to speak out, but it appears unlikely that anything will change until more players demand it.
There are a lot of games going on between club and country, which is frankly unhealthy.
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