It’s non-stop. Real Madrid continue their season into June and July, without much rest, and a ton of injuries still lingering.
These observations — where I look at Real Madrid’s history, its players on loan, Castilla, tactical tidbits, and other relevant thoughts — are now a regular thing. All previous editions can be found here.
There is more football now than ever — with seemingly no end in sight. If anything, the number of games will increase before they decrease.
This season is unprecedented. Two additional Champions League games were added to the slate, and four if you were seeded into the playoff zones after the group stage. The first ever Club World Cup this summer will see 32 teams meet in the USA for more gruelling games — nearly one month of football — and for the bigger teams like Real Madrid, a likely long stay on US soil as the team progresses beyond the initial three games.
It’s unclear what pre-season looks like after the Club World Cup, especially for teams that make it far in the tournament. The Premier League has rejected a request from teams to delay the start of next season in order to incorporate more rest and preparation.
Per club sources, Real Madrid will not plan any pre-season games after the Club World Cup, stating “there is no time.”
(There is a small chance this could change, but it’s unlikely, and in the club’s words, “it’s too difficult”).
By Spring time every year, the pre-season schedule is made public. The Club World Cup is in a weird twilight zone — almost an extension of the current season rather than the start of a new one. The tournament wraps up mid-July, which is usually long before any pre-season even begins.
Part of scrapping pre-season games may come down to how seriously Real Madrid, and, other teams, will take the Club World Cup. What is seen as an annoying ‘extra’ tournament, will likely go down as a big success, despite our complaints about the unnecessary amount of football on the calendar. There won’t be any significant sporting events the tournament will be competing with for eyeballs. Every team will try to win. There is real prize money involved. Beyond money, there is real drive within Real Madrid to be the first-ever winners of the competition, setting the tone for it to be ‘their’s’ — much like the Champions League is.
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If Real Madrid bounce from the tournament early (unlikely if they bring their A-team and A-game against inferior teams on paper), the club may arrange some last minute pre-season games, probably behind closed doors, within Spain before the season starts to get the blood pumping again before the 2025 – 2026 season gets underway. It will be a far-cry from pre-arranged tournaments with advanced ticket sales.
But the whole scenario does raise concerns about everyone’s preparation for the following season. Last summer, most of Real Madrid’s team barely had a pre-season, and some didn’t have one at all. Last pre-season in the USA, during the Soccer Champions Tour, Real Madrid filled their team sheets with Castilla players.
Nothing wrong with that — in fact it’s welcome. But the South American stars joined late after Copa America, as did the Europeans after the Euros. Some, like Mbappe, didn’t join at all. The team came out of the gates slow, unpolished, and without ample time to integrate Mbappe. Match fitness was lacking.
The introduction of the Club World Cup now adds something extra on ‘off years’ where the are no international tournaments. Don’t be surprised if the remaining rare summers where nothing is planned, FIFA or UEFA will eventually figure out a way to add something — introducing a revolving tournament every summer.
What is the solution? FIFA or UEFA could work with teams to decrease games, but there is too much money involved, and the financial implications of gutting games from the calendar don’t reflect well on the bottom line for executives higher up (and ‘smaller clubs’ are generally ok with so many games that reward them financially. They need the money and relevancy more than big clubs do). Taking games off the slate means they’d likely have to charge more for remaining games. Offering / securing bigger TV deals to compensate for less games will likely mean the consumer will pay more for their package.
FIFA will also argue and urge clubs to use the money to build more depth and rotate more to combat more games. Fine. But are bigger squads, a dilution of stars, more games, and just a higher quantity of everything actually good for the sport overall? Does more quantity decrease the quality?
It’s impossible not to bring up the main argument against the overwhelming football schedule: deteriorating health. Football is heading into uncharted territory when it comes to dealing with such an astronomical number of ACL injuries.
In February, The Athletic reported that the number of ACL injuries has skyrocketed in the last decade, and, that this season was the worst in Premier League history:
“The average number (of ACL injuries) across the six seasons between 2017-18 and 2022-23 is just 6.3; between 2012-13 (when Premier Injuries’ data collection began) and 2016-17, the average was 10.4,” Elias Burke of The Athletic wrote. “As it stands, the Premier League is on track to end the campaign with 13.”
More games, more fatigue, and less time to recover can contribute to the rise of season-ending blows.
No one knows this better than Real Madrid. When Real Madrid lost all three of Eder Militao, David Alaba, and Thibaut Courtois early in the 2023 – 2024 season, Carlo Ancelotti said it was “unprecedented” in his coaching career. This season alone, Real Madrid lost Dani Carvajal, Eder Militao (again), and Joan Martinez to ACL tears. Fielding any sort of ‘Once de Gala’ — especially over a the course of more than a couple games — has proven to be impossible in the last couple years.
Xabi Alonso won’t have that luxury for months, literally. He will be without several important players due to injury this Club World Cup. Even if everyone returns before the season starts, Alonso will lose Jude Bellingham as the Englishman recovers from shoulder surgery. If we’re lucky, we’ll see Alonso’s best XI sometime before Christmas.
(The club has placed a big bet on winning the Club World Cup by delaying Bellingham’s shoulder surgery. One realistic option was to shut him down the day after the league Clasico loss in May. Speaking to club sources over the past year, there was always a dilemma on how to deal with Bellingham’s surgery. The moment he goes under the knife, there’s a 2-3 month recovery process. He could potentially avoid the surgery altogether and play through the pain with a shoulder strap, but it affects his mobility and performance greatly. Had the surgery been done in May, he would’ve been back for the start of next season. Real Madrid’s first three games in the Club World Cup are against teams they should beat with or without Bellingham — so really they’re prioritizing a handful of knockout games over 10-12 La Liga games next season.)
“Constantly adding international matches and competitions has broken the calendar,” Jerome Perlemuter, General Secretary at World Leagues Association said in September. “We only have 365 days in a year, which means very simply that if you keep adding matches, at some point there is no more space – national leagues cannot organise their competitions properly anymore and players pay for it with injuries.”
This is one of those seemingly unfixable problems. If it was up to one league, one regime, you could enforce reform. But it’s almost impossible with so many hands in the pot: FIFA, UEFA, Leagues, Federations — they all have their own set of fixtures they want to vomit on the calendar in return for financial gains. You’d have to almost erase everything and start the sport from scratch, or bring everyone together to consult on a unified solution — something difficult to do.
“It’s important to remember FIFA organize about only 1% of the footballing calendar,” a spokesperson from FIFA told me for this story. “We are always looking at ways to work with teams and players and have conversations about maximizing players’ health.”
FIFA feels most of the blame of the overwhelming football calendar, and the major injuries that come with it, are not down to them — but others.
“Some leagues in Europe — themselves competition organisers and regulators — are acting with commercial self-interest, hypocrisy, and without consideration to everyone else in the world,” FIFA said in July of 2024 in a statement in reply to FIFPro and 37 European Leagues jointly filed an antitrust complaint against FIFA. “Those leagues apparently prefer a calendar filled with friendlies and summer tours, often involving extensive global travel.”
But others argue that FIFA can still step in to regulate, and, unlike UEFA, have taken an authoritative, rather than collaborative approach.
“The problem of the overloaded calendar is not caused by league competitions, but by FIFA, with its new format and duration of the tournaments, and by UEFA with the Nations League and the new UEFA club competitions with the increased number of dates and games,” Luigi De Siervo, Serie A Chief Exeuctive said. “But the difference is that UEFA had a strong consultation with all the stakeholders — leagues included — and decided on a reform in the format of club competitions after a long discussion.
“FIFA imposed their new format and competitions without any discussion, consultation and without accepting to have any form of relationship with the other competitions organisers.”
You will never have a perfect solution to keep everyone happy. Smaller teams don’t have the same complaints about their stars being worked into the ground, nor can they afford to say no to additional games. Bigger teams always ask for the biggest slice of the pie because of the marketability they bring to the table. League and Federation executives just want more of everything, namely: games and money.
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Could European football adapt an NFL model? The NFL has a short blitz of games (17 games, around five months), and generates an astronomical amount of money. In 2023, the NFL generated $18.7 billion in revenue — far and away the most of any major North American sports league, as well as European football as a whole. They bring in a considerable amount through TV deals. The demand from loyal consumers is high. The NFL generates more than FIFA and the Premier League combined.
Real Madrid’s pre-season planning dilemma won’t be unique to them alone. Every team will have to endure the grind. PSG and Inter, the two Champions League Finalists Real Madrid may have to go through to win this summer’s tournament, just finished their season May 31st. Inter are on their last lungs. PSG had nine players featuring in the UEFA Nations League Semi-finals, to varying degrees.
But as things stand, despite all the struggles in maintaining squad health amid a wild calendar, there is some optimism with regards to the squad heading to the USA this Saturday. Eder Militao, Dani Carvajal, and David Alaba completed part of the training in Xabi Alonso’s first session as a Real Madrid manager. Antonio Rüdiger is making a push to return in time — though things look more grim for Eduardo Camavinga as of now.
But Alonso will have time to train with the stars and most of the squad before the first game kicks off in Miami against Al-Hilal on June 18th. Real Madrid should have enough in the tank to win their first three games. Things will get really interesting once they get past those fixtures. If I had to guess, and this is a wild prediction based on the groups and potential seedings, Real Madrid could play Juventus in the round-of-16, River Plate in the quarter-finals, Chelsea in the semi-finals, and PSG in the final. (Don’t quote me on this, but the bracket could shake-out this way or not, football is wildly unpredictable — regardless of the path, it’s going to be fun if Real Madrid keep advancing.)
Once Real Madrid return from the USA — and we are far away from knowing the timeline or the state of the team at that time — Alonso will have a unique situation where he has a month plus change to work with his squad in training, with no pre-season games, before the 2025 – 2026 season kicks off.
