**NON-Book Related Post**
The recent international fixtures have made me think. Surely there’s a better way of organising these games that doesn’t interfere with club matches. The current arrangements are, in my opinion, no longer suitable for the modern game. As the wage payers, surely the clubs are entitled to not face long periods of time without players due to injuries received on international duty. The recent injury of Daniel Sturridge of Liverpool, for example, occurred while training for England, against the wishes of the club who pays his wages. Liverpool pay him £140,000 a week, and he’s been unavailable for 5 weeks, that’s £700,000. Add to the fact that Liverpool could argue his absence has undoubtedly caused the team to drop points in their own league campaign. Highly inconvenient to say the least for Liverpool.
Also, many of these games are little more than extended training sessions, with England facing, in this current period, games against Estonia and San Marino. The Republic of Ireland even put 7 past Gibraltar. Not exactly competitive.
How about we re-arrange these qualification games to take place all at the same time, at the end of the season? For example, the Premier League season runs to 38 games, so at one a week, from the start of September until the end of May. Obviously with midweek games, and the busier schedule at Christmas, there could be a saving of seven or eight weeks, bringing the league campaign to a conclusion at the beginning or middle of April. So, therefore, May, June, July and August would be totally free. Obviously every other year we have Euros and the World Cup, so in the year immediately preceding those tournaments we could easily have the entire qualification process.
The format would remain essentially the same, x amount of teams split into x amount of groups. Under this programme, we would have all the games taking place in a ‘qualification tournament’, all in one of the countries, who would obviously lobby for the right to host in much the same way as countries apply to host the real tournaments. The groups would be drawn immediately following the previous tournament, and would take place the year before the next. So, following Euro 2016 the draw would be made for Euro 2020 and the qualification to take place in the summer of 2019. The summer of 2017 would see the qualification for World Cup 2018, and so on and so on. Under this plan, even smaller countries, in footballing terms, such as Kazakhstan, Georgia, the Balkan and the Baltic States, could host a mini tournament made up of seven to eight teams, whereas they could never hope to host the main event. This would improve their stature within the game, and encourage the improvement of stadia and infrastructure, which would only benefit football fans in the long term in those countries.
Clubs would be on board, as it gives them access to their own players for the entirety of a season, with no inconvenient breaks, especially for foreign players travelling to South America, or Africa and back, often missing an extra game to allow for jet lag. This would bring a togetherness to the playing squad, without damaging momentum, as they wouldn't all be flying off to various corners of the globe every six to eight weeks. Also, for the national side, having a squad together for an extended period of time can only be an advantage, rather than for a week here, and a week there. Add to this, the fact that the players would be fully focused without the worry or distractions of club duties looming large over them. Even an injury which may only keep a player out for three to four weeks, is extremely damaging to a club playing an intensive domestic campaign, both with league and cup games, but essentially the player may only miss one international, so the coach is less bothered at that level (Roy Hodgson’s attitude to Daniel Sturridge, and Liverpool being a case-in-point). On the flip side of that, the same injury picked up in the club’s off season is much less a cause for concern, and if the player then faces the possibility of missing the entire qualification tournament, the perhaps the international coach might be less inclined to disregard medical advice from the player’s club.
Another idea would be to limit the number of team eligible to actually play in these tournaments. With the greatest of respect to Gibraltar, San Marino, Andorra et al, games against these teams, for the majority of Europe are little more than an opportunity to improve their goal difference, and present no challenge whatsoever. How about giving them their own tournament whereby they earn the right to play the big boys? A preliminary group comprising of those three along with Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and the Faroe Islands. Possibly others. The winner then gets to enter qualifying for real, and gives them a real sense of ambition that the current set-up deprives them off. Being cannon fodder for even the weaker nations cannot be much fun, but with a level playing field, a genuine prize, and a chance to earn their spot at the top table, and even an opportunity to improve against similarly ranked teams.
Just something to think about for UEFA and FIFA....