An Idea for International Break Haters.

As I write, a week of international football is coming to an end, but not everyone is happy about the fact. To some this was yet another week with no top level club football to enjoy because of the “dreaded” international break. I am sure I am not the only one who has been involved in numerous conversations that have started something like this:

What is the point of England playing San Marino, they are obviously going to win and I don't want the star players from my club getting injured on international duty….

I think there are a growing number of people who, whilst they still support England in the competitions that come along every two years, do not really care much about the games that take place in between. This is especially true of international friendlies, but increasingly also the type of game that England will be playing a lot in the qualifiers for Euro 2016; games against countries that are not expected to make it to Euro 2016 and in some cases are not expected to win or even draw any of the qualifiers. Thanks to the new format for the Euro 2016 competition, England would have to finish fourth in a group containing, themselves Estonia, Lithuania, San Marino, Slovenia, Switzerland, in order not to qualify for at least a play off to get in the Euros. So this means two teams that failed to make the World Cup would have to finish above them for this to happen, even if they massively underperformed, this was never likely to happen. Given England have already managed to beat Switzerland in Switzerland, the thought of them not qualifying is gone from the head of even the biggest England pessimist.

Some football clubs also dislike international breaks during the season, take my team Manchester United as a case in point. They had a fairly poor start to the season but have now won their last two games, they would like nothing more but to keep that momentum and play another game this weekend. Instead, they will wait until the Monday night game next week before the team is back together on the field. In between the Everton game and the West Brom game many of the players will be involved for their countries. Of the eleven players that started for United in their last game, seven have travelled with their international team so far in this international break, David De Gea travelled with Spain and was on the bench against Slovakia, Luke Shaw played for the England under 21s against Croatia, Marcos Rojo and Angel di Maria travelled to China to play in Argentina's defeat to Brazil. Daley Blind and Robin van Persie play for Holland against and Radamel Falcao played for Columbia against El Salvador in the United States. Wayne Rooney missed the game at Everton due to suspension but would surely have started had he been available, and he too has been in action for England. If any of these payers were to get injured for their countries, this could have major consequences for United's season.

In cricket, the county game continues even when there are international fixtures going on, as a summer game, and given the amount of time it takes to play a test series, the people who run cricket, don't really have a choice. But this means that county cricket goes without some of its best players for a large part of the season. This means that the winners of the county cricket competition are often the team with the best players not quite good enough to play in internationals. There is a good reason for international breaks, because if the Premier League carried on while internationals took place, then it would become an entirely different type of competition. Even if we only look at a round of games involving South American countries, thiswould mean that 37 squad player for various different teams could potentially be unavailable. And this wouldn't just affect the teams near the top of the league, the only three teams that do not have a South American player in their squad this season are Aston Villa, Burnley and Stoke.

If we accept that internationals are going to be played during the season, then we have to accept that club football will have to take a break to free up the players. The international breaks seem to be close together at this time of the year and there is a reason for this too. Many countries in the world are unable to host games during the winter, so the games have to take place in August, September, October, or in March, April, May. One interesting idea I have heard is that the football season could go on interrupted through the autumn and through the spring if it finished a little bit earlier so as to allow internationals to be played in the early summer. There would be no need to reduce the amount of games played, just when there is now an international break there would be games in the domestic league. This could then mean that the league was finished by the end of April, players could have May off and then play the internationals for the year in a four or five week period during June and early July. Obviously it would not be possible in years where there is a competition in the Summer, but it could remove the need for international breaks every other season, or maybe if the qualifying competition was slimmed down, it could mean no qualifiers had to be played during the season.