Son Heung-Min played 78 games of football between 25th May 2018 and 13th June 2019.
He benfitted from just 22 days of rest during the summer, 6 less than the minimum (28-42)
recommended by medical professionals.
And as a Premier League player, he missed out on a winter break, for which the recommendation
is 14 days of uninterrupted rest.
The number of fixtures combined with the intensity of the modern game has led to the suggestion
that the workload of players like Son is unsustainable and unsafe.
One organisation making this claim is players’ union FIFPRO in a recent report it published
entitled ‘At The Limit’.
The report makes the case in various ways.
The pronounced issues, though, are that - firstly - in extreme cases, elite players participate
in almost 80 games per year.
That, secondly, players feature in many of these games without 5 or more days rest and
recovery beforehand, and this happens regularly throughout the season.
And finally, that the increasing fragmentation of the football calendar is exacerbating those
problems, as various competing interests continue to re-structure the sport’s global shape.
Short-term, this leads to players playing a larger number of games in a shorter space
of time, but long-term, the clustering of separate competitions and the resulting reduction
of off-season recovery periods leads to “continuous competition cycles”, in which a player may
feel physically and psychologically that there is no end or beginning to any given season.
But, how do we know how many games is too many?
After all, Son’s 78 game season (of which 72% were played without 5 or more days rest
and recovery) doesn’t sound hugely different to John Robertson’s 70-game season for Nottingham
Forest and Scotland in the 1978-79 season.
Go back even earlier to football in wartime Britain, and you’ll hear stories of players
featuring in over one hundred games a year.
The key is not in the number of games alone, but in the intensity of modern football.
The increasing complexity of tactical systems has ensured the continual evolution of the
sport.
As athletic performances have improved, the game itself has become more fatigue-inducing.
As Ken Early wrote in an article for the Irish Times: “The rise of system football means
that the English league today has less broken play, and more periods of controlled possession.”
Early goes on to note that in the last 10 years not only has the number of passes increased
by 25%, but the number of tackles and interceptions has significantly reduced.
“The team that made the fewest tackles 10 years ago tackled more than the team that
makes the most tackles today.”
Fewer breaks in play clearly leads to a more intense playing experience, which has both
physical and psychological effects.
So, for Son Heung-Min, 78 games is arguably a much weightier burden than a similar number
of games of the football played decades earlier.
Perhaps more concerning long-term is the “continuous competition cycles”, created as a result
of competing governing bodies and the financial imperatives of the modern game.
Pre-season tours are emphasised for commercial reasons, leading to higher intensity games
and greater distances of travel.
FIFA are not only seeking to expand the World Cup but revamp the Club World Cup with greater
financial backing.
UEFA has expanded its European Championships from 16 teams to 24 and is holding the 2020
tournament finals over 12 different cities in 12 countries.
The impact of these and other expansions and additions floods the calendar with fixtures,
all duelling for prominence.
And the problem is not at its worst in Europe.
In an article for the New York Times, Rory Smith wrote regarding the burnout of South
American players specifically, due to CONMEBOL’s decision to hold four Copa America’s in
six years to realign the tournament with the European Championships.
Smith writes “Between 2014 and 2020, should Chile qualify for the Qatar World Cup, it
is possible that [Alexis] Sanchez will have had just one full summer break.”
Even that summer break, Smith notes, wasn’t planned, Chile simply failed to qualify for
the World Cup in 2018.
Had they participated, Sanchez would’ve undoubtedly added to the 130 appearances he’d
already made for Chile at just 30-years-old.
It’s perhaps no surprise that his form is desperately poor at Manchester United.
FIFPRO’s report also states that elite non-European players are travelling too much, frequently
crossing time zones and not getting the recommended rest and recovery time.
“63% of players say that long-haul travel impacts their performance.”
For players featuring both at club and international level, the travelling time can be significant.
Son flew 110,596km last season.
That’s nearly a third of the way to the moon, and the equivalent of taking the world’s
longest commercial flight (Newark to Singapore – 15,344km) just over seven times.
Or 135 hours flying time; five and a half days in the air.
The frequent crossing of time zones can also be problematic for footballers, who rarely
have the time to recover from jetlag.
Interrupted or inadequate sleep can lead to lower reaction time, poorer accuracy, poorer
decision making, and crucially it can increase the likelihood of injuries.
A study - by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine - of 80 Major League Baseball players
even showed that lack of sleep can reduce the length of a player’s career.
And whilst there are clear physical consequences to overplaying an under-recovered footballer,
such as the increased risk of injuries, the psychological consequences should not be underplayed.
Speaking about ‘burnout’ to the Guardian in 2014, Dr Andrew Hill – (University of
Leeds’ School of Biomedical Sciences) said: “There is often confusion when people talk
about overtraining, too many games or fixture congestions; what they are talking about is
physiological fatigue, but burnout is normally about psychological exhaustion.
They are correlated.
For every match he plays there is going to be a psychological expenditure, associated
with preparing for games and competing in games.”
So, how could this be changed?
Well, the FIFPRO report makes a few recommendations.
It includes locking in season breaks, limiting back-to-back games and considering match caps.
85% of players surveyed by FIFPRO are in favour of an in-season 14-day break.
64% of players said they “believed they had insufficient rest between games.”
And the evidence suggests that “A very short period of recovery between matches – less
than 72 hours – for players is associated with more matches lost for their teams”.
Limiting the amount of games that individuals play could, therefore, lead to an improvement
in the game.
A fully rested player is more efficient and is capable of higher performance levels.
Plus, limits on player use would inevitably lead to greater use of a team’s whole squad;
potentially more minutes for academy graduates and youth players, something many fans want
to see.
Either way, it might be necessary.
As Jurgen Klopp said in a press conference in May 2019: “IF WE DON’T LEARN TO DEAL
WITH OUR PLAYERS IN A BETTER WAY, COMPETITION WISE…
WE KILL THE WONDERFUL GAME.
WITHOUT THE PLAYER, THE GAME IS NOT A GOOD ONE.”
However, as a result of the way that football is structured, FIFPRO says that this problem
requires a “holistic solution”, as no single organisation can make the necessary
changes alone.
The task is in convincing competing interests to holster expansion plans.
And that won’t be easily achieved.