Colo and Jonas called up for Argentina.
Posted on August 6th, 2010 | 15 Comments |
Fair play to them and all that, particularly to Colo who missed out on the World Cup, but what a silly time to play an international friendly.
I’m talking in general now, not just because it affects some of our players, but whoever decided that playing meaningless international friendlies a few days before the domestic season is about to start needs their head looking at. Or on the flipside, the Premier League, who knew that this next week was an international week yet still decided to plan the start of the season a few days later, should take a long hard look at themselves.
As I said, it is not just a problem for us, many clubs could suffer at the hands of this. Imagine if Colo or Jonas sustained an unfortunate injury that ruled them out for a lenghtly period? What about if one of the leagues golden boys, like a Wayne Rooney or a Steven Gerarrd for example, suffered a serious injury? How would that help the Premier League?
Now I’m not averse to international football, in fact I think it gives squads like ours a chance to rest and recuperate a little given the fact we don’t have as many international players as we once had. But the dates that these friendly games fall on are more than a little confusing.
The bigger leagues like Spain and Germany start a bit later than ours which means rather than being a pointless friendly, the players can actually use this game as part of their pre-season preparations. In England, players don’t have that choice, and on the back of a major tournament you really have to wonder why the league start date hasn’t been adjusted.
I can imagine now how the FA had planned it – Another money making exercise to celebrate England and their triumphant run to the semi-final or whatever, but that didn’t happen, and now players and managers are questioning the wisdom of the move.
Fair play to Colo, Jonas, or any other of our players who get called up for their country. I just hope they come back all in one piece!
Rant over!
Hey Hey.
It’s going to be the 2nd game in the Aviva Stadium, our new state of the art Colosseum :D
Think I’ll take a trip up to it :)