Top players creaking under weight of soccer's ever-increasing schedule

MONACO (AP) — Jude Bellingham and Rodri have key starring roles for title-winning soccer clubs and their national teams. Neither is currently playing matches.

Both are being carefully managed early in another congested season that shapes to keep both busy well into July. Again.

Bellingham's Real Madrid and Rodri's Manchester City have more games in a deeper Champions League schedule through January, and both teams qualified for a new month-long FIFA club tournament in the United States to end the season.

The relentless two-games-per-week schedule — almost routine in top-level European soccer since the pandemic-delayed 2019-20 season — is fueling concern about burning out the best players with expanded international events.

Bellingham was sidelined 10 days into Madrid's competitive season which started just one month after he was on the losing England team against Spain in the European Championship final.

Announcing his muscle injury on Aug. 23, the 21-year-old star acknowledged "maybe my body is telling me it needs a bit more rest after a busy year."

Rodri was essential last season, the Euro 2024 player of the tournament who never lost a game with Spain, nor in the Premier League to help Man City win a fourth straight title.

"I do need a rest," Rodri famously said in April after a 3-3 draw at Madrid in the Champions League quarterfinals. Man City's title defense ended in a penalty shootout after the second leg also was drawn.

Now Rodri is resting in Manchester, missing the first two rounds in the English Premier League. His club said he is being eased back after on a personal training program after a 63-game season.

Man City's intense August-to-July schedule was highlighted by Portugal defender Ruben Dias in a social media post with a laughter emoji.

"It's impossible to maintain an optimal level of performance," Dani Carvajal, the Madrid and Spain defender, said this month. "I think that should be analyzed by the people in charge of football."

As European champion, Madrid also must play a FIFA Intercontinental Cup game in December, possibly in Qatar.

European soccer body UEFA agreed to a new and bigger Champions League format that starts Sept. 17 after being pressured for years by storied and wealthy clubs like Madrid.

"The need to play regular matches in Europe is a need from the clubs, it's not a need for UEFA," one of its senior officials, Giorgio Marchetti, said Wednesday in Monaco ahead of the Champions League draw.

The influential European Club Association, now led by Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi, pushed hard for more high-profile games to drive up revenue. That typically pays for higher transfer fees and player salaries.

"It's amazing also for the players," Al-Khelaifi told reporters in Monaco. "They prefer to play matches than to train."

PSG, Madrid and Man City are among the 12 European clubs that qualified for the 32-team Club World Cup that FIFA will relaunch in June.

European clubs once did not want the Club World Cup, also seeing a risk to the status of the Champions League though FIFA scheduled it only in 2025 and 2029.

The clubs have long expected to earn tens of millions of dollars in FIFA prize money from playing up to seven games, though the tournament's commercial strategy is still unclear even with Saudi Arabian backing.

The Club World Cup has become a legal dispute. The global player union FIFPRO's European division joined national leagues to file a complaint against FIFA with the European Commission in Brussels.

"Players are being pushed beyond their limits, with significant injury risks and impacts on their welfare and fundamental rights," FIFPRO warned FIFA in May.

The union targeted the FIFA event though not UEFA's expanded club events which will steer hundreds of millions of euros (dollars) more to the 108 European clubs playing in the three annual club competitions.

For clubs, the need to be in high-profile, lucrative international events is pressing.

Manchester United is taking a nine-figure revenue hit this season by not playing in the Champions League or Club World Cup. It still has a packed domestic program and the second-tier Europa League.

"The intensity of the Premier League and the two domestic cup competitions that we have does add a little bit more," Man United sporting director Dan Ashworth said Friday in Monaco. "But we will be well-equipped, we are pleased with the squad."

United is not in the Club World Cup because it did not win the Champions League in the past four years. Man City and Chelsea did to earn England's two entries.

Salzburg was a surprise qualifier from Austria for the FIFA event due to consistent results across the four Champions League editions.

Even with financial backing from drinks giant Red Bull, Salzburg's squad of players will be tested, especially after playing four qualifying games in August just to reach the Champions League.

Salzburg could have to play 10 more games to reach the round of 16 in March, through a playoffs round in February. Man City and Real Madrid likely will qualify playing only eight games.

"It is a big, big difference," Leipzig chief executive Stephan Reiter acknowledged to The Associated Press in Monaco, though adding the club's ambitious young players want the challenge.

"That is what we have to pay," Reiter said, referring to the grueling schedule "for participating in the international competitions."

___

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer