The Rondo - Are Players Being Overworked?

Obviously in 2020, they had Pedri

He played 63 games in less than 300 days. That picture of him looking exhausted on the pitch

was everything for me because that's how I felt all of 2020. So Alphonso Davies played in the third place match

between Canada and the US in the CONCACAF Nations League. Ends up tearing his ACL in the first 30 minutes of the game

You guys think that it's Canada's fault or Bayern's fault and our players working too hard

I honestly think you can't really put the blame on anybody here because you're not going to stop a player

from wanting to play for their national team, especially if they're so prideful

if they're so, like, proud of the idea of representing their country. Somebody like Alphonso Davies

no matter what, you're not going to stop him. Even if he says he's 50%, he's always looking on the bright side

He's looking at the cup half full type of approach. He's not going to be like, oh, I'm not going to want to play 50%

He's going to want to play no matter what. Dude, it was crazy, though, because this whole story

f***s me off to no end, right? Because it's like, he does his knee, right

He doesn't think he's done his knee. It comes out the next day that he has indeed done his knee

and Bayern are like, we're going to sue you, Canada. It turns out that he wanted to play

that Canada were like, nah, mate, like, rest up. And Fonzie was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no

I want to play against the US. I want to beat the **** out of these guys. They're doing medical tests, like, lay on and saying

look, you can play 45 minutes or whatever. And he's like, okay, no, no, no, no

I'm the **** captain. I want to start. I think this is definitely going to, you know

ruin the relationship between Bayern and Canada. And I think for clubs and international teams in general, because look, you have a player who's playing a third place match at the end of the day

And no matter how much you want him to play, you know that he's playing for the biggest club or one of the biggest clubs in the world

And he's one of your most important players on the national team. You could have easily gave him a break after that first match and said, hey, man, look, you have the second round of the Champions League coming up

I know it's not it's not a coach's reason or like it's not Jesse Marsh's responsibility to look after Alphonso and be like, hey, you have a game with Bayern

But at the end of the day, you need to protect your players. So, are you blaming Jesse Marsh for it then

No, then that, then if we're taking into account what Raheem is saying, then we have to start blaming more of the player then Because you can put the you can put that on the clubs You can put that on the national team either Jesse Marsh has a job He has to win the games He has to maintain a good relationship with his players If he told Alphonso Davies that a crack at beating the U

you're not going to play because you need a rest for whatever reason, he's clearly going to feel some type of way

Because hindsight is 20-20. He's not going to go into that game knowing he's going to tear his ACL

So in that case, then it becomes more on the player's responsibility than the club or the national team

So it all becomes very gray. it becomes very unfortunate. But at the end of the day

one thing is for certain, you ain't stopping Alphonso Davies from not playing that game. You know, it's crazy

You know, it's crazy. That was just nuance brought into this podcast. Definitely. That's sick

I love that. I love that. Also, there was, you know, obviously in 2020, they had Pedri

He played 63 games in less than 300 days. That picture of him looking exhausted on the pitch

was everything for me because that's how I felt all of 2020. Didn't we all, bro

Forget COVID, man. Didn't we all, bro? But, you know, we're talking about, you know, players having loyalty to their international teams as well as their clubs and i feel like

these players just get caught in this gray area right in between do you guys think it's the

manager's decision or it's up to the clubs to tell the players how much they're going to play

internationally well first of all i i don't buy into the argument that like players can just be

told like hey mate you're not playing you'll be all right yeah footballers want to play football

it's their job and most of them except ben white apparently love it like yeah what yeah i don't

know what happened to him in england can i just can i just say why do footballers hate playing

football i don't know there are some people who are just like good at it and it's their job but

honestly like yes yeah michael owen what i wouldn't give to be wearing the captain's armband

for england right now anyway not you know how good you have to be to be insane at a sport and

bro bro it's crazy you've got to be a psychopath haven't you but anyway no your actual your actual

point was about um whose fault is it well it depends from federation to federation the one i

always think about is Spain, right? Because what Spain do is they see a talented 15-year-old and

they like mine Yeah Like Pau Kubasi was like just turned 17 has half a good season for Barca and Luis de la Fuente is like hey buddy Yeah but I going to be playing for Spain my boy it crazy so and look but also at the same time like how are you supposed to turn that turn

down that opportunity you just you just can't it's the same thing with like Saka and Arsenal right

he had an unbelievable year he gets into was it the England Euro squad are you kidding me a home

Euros and you're just gonna say no no like I don't think it's anyone's fault one thing I will

say though is that managers of national teams need to know how much you can play someone like if i

were an arsenal fan i would be fuming that miles lewis skelly played for england in that international

break but we also got to remember that football is a young man's game but i have a great question

for you guys do you guys think that as players are playing so early in their careers that we'll

see less of them in their prime by the time they get 27 28 that's a great conversation because i

I actually was writing up a long form YouTube video about it. There's two studies that I was going to talk about

One, which talks about Olympians and Olympic athletes. Over the 30-year stretch from 1990, I believe it was Tokyo

I can't remember where it was, but from 1990 to 2018, they did a study. In a 30-year stretch, the average age of the Olympians

Now, Olympians are the top athletes that represent the country. Average age increased from 25 to 27

Now, conversely speaking, there was a recent study done by a team in Australia that looked at Europe's top five leagues

and they confirmed that the average age, which was always somewhere in the range of 27

that age is actually slowly coming down to 26. From a numbers perspective

to go from 27 to 26 might not be too big, but that is actually a massive, massive study

if actually it becomes even bigger on a scale of theory because players are peaking at a higher

at a faster rate. That means that there's more of an expenditure of their tank, their energy, their effort

Everything is coming earlier. You're talking about playing way too many games

it's gonna be on the clubs to manage these players and their development or else they're gonna burn out too quickly

They're gonna get they're gonna reach their peak too quickly and that that trough is gonna cut It's gonna be a lot faster and it's something that clubs are gonna have to be very wary of

And I like to put a massive asterisk in this point is that I am not a doctor Okay I am 100 not a doctor You know that Appreciate it bro um hey you should see my half mouth point being bakayo saka with a serious hamstring injury at this age dude it could be

really bad dude at 23 serious long-term hamstring injury that requires surgery in the middle of a

season dude i'd be scared i'm scared as an england fan man there are very few wingers who rely on pace

who have managed to be relevant past the age of 30. Like we're looking at Raheem Sterling, for example

how much he's had to change his game due to injuries and losing parts of his pace, right

And when that's a part of your game, it's detrimental to your success as a player

especially if you rely on your physicality. Look at Sonny. Watching Sonny Min, my man, like watching him

like dare I even say the word decline, but you're seeing his game change. You're seeing him decline

That explosiveness, his ability to change quickly, that ankle to turn. It's not the same

No, it's not. And it's tough for these players. i think it's really really tough and i think at the end of the day you guys think that youngsters

like laminya mall miles lewiskelly and nwaniere could they handle this work okay can we can we

please can we please please please not mention miles lewiskelly and ethan nwaniere in the same

sentence we're not talking about we're not talking about quality we're talking about age

okay i was like jesus christ man oh god my brain hurts but it's like at the end of the day like

These guys are the young guys playing 90-minute matches against grown men week in and week out

Yeah, no, no, no. I take your point. I really do take your point. What was the question

You're not even listening to the question. You just heard the Arsenal guys that wanted to debate

What's wrong with this guy? It's about management. If Arsenal really truly believe in these players, if Arsenal understand that they, any clubs

if they understand that these players have lots of potential, they need to manage these games

There's going to be games coming in thick and fast. You think that FIFA, you think that these governing bodies are going to decrease games

No. Unless there's going to be some drastic, explosive decision from the players' unions

or whatever it is, it's not going to change. So these clubs need to understand that and

they need to manage them carefully or else, like you said, you're talking about Bukayo Saka, they're going to lose these players and their potential. If they can be giving

you five, ten years of greatness, you might lose them in three