When Sadio Mané swept home a 98th-minute penalty in Dakar to hand Senegal a hard-fought victory over Rwanda on Tuesday, it brought the curtain down on a gruelling 72-game season for the Liverpool forward.
In Malawi on Thursday, Mo Salah also hit the 72-game mark with Egypt. If Jordan Henderson is picked for England’s game against Italy at Molineux, it’ll be 57 matches in a campaign that came with just a few weeks break after the European Championship final at Wembley.
But they are not isolated examples. A Fifpro study released last month showed 72 of the 265 elite players they studied had played more than 55 games, a benchmark that puts them at serious risk of injury. They called for reform of the schedule but with a winter World Cup on the horizon, the demands are only going to get more intense.
Premier League clubs start pre-season testing in the first week of July. Mané, Salah and those called on to play in this week’s Nations League games might get an extra week’s holiday but the big kick-off has been pushed forward a year to incorporate the Qatar World Cup.
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“There’s just been no rest for the players since Project Restart,” Jamie Harley, the former head of science at Everton and Newcastle United, says of a gruelling schedule in which Premier League players have competed almost non-stop since June 2020. “It’s hard to predict how next season is going to go but it’s going to be a very challenging season for players and clubs.”
Harley worked with Rafa Benitez at Goodison Park last year so knows that clubs have been preparing for the unique demands of this season for months. The season kicks off in August, runs for 15 weeks before the World Cup and then restarts on Boxing Day when league, Cup and Champions League games will need to be squeezed in before a May finish.
The five-week World Cup break is a complex issue for clubs: for those left behind, they will need to keep ticking along to prevent them becoming deconditioned. For those in Qatar, the demands of travel and playing in a hot country are going to add further stresses when they return. Clubs are also putting plans in place to cope with players returning demoralised after being knocked out of the World Cup but who are expected to “go again” within days.
“It’s almost going to be two seasons in one,” Harley says. “There is a 15-week season and a 24-week season with a five week break [for the World Cup] in the middle.
“It’s challenging but at least it’s written down and you know about it. With the pandemic, it was how much was unknown that made it the challenge – we didn’t know how long we’d not be playing or if we’d come back at all.”
This beefed up schedule comes as the game has never been faster. Players are required to make more sprints over greater distances in the modern game, which puts them at greater risk of injury. Experts have identified that how players decelerate seems to predict whether they’re likely to pick up muscle strains and tears.
Before Project Restart, the worry was that an epidemic of soft tissue injuries suffered in matches would follow the enforced 11-week Covid break. That was what happened in the NBA in the 2011-12 lockout season, when team owners began a work stoppage for five months.
As it turned out there was no rise in match-day injuries but clubs saw training ground issues increase – so many have altered their schedules to cope with it. Crystal Palace, for instance, reaped the rewards of that approach last season.
Others players have been less fortunate. Ben Dinnery, founder of Premier Injuries, carried out research on the England squad that reached the final of Euro 2020 and found that they paid the price for their involvement.
Fifty-six per cent of the 17 outfield players who played for England in Euro 2020 suffered more injuries last season than they had in the two previous campaigns. 66 per cent of them played fewer minutes last season than they had in the two previous seasons. Leeds United’s Kalvin Phillips went from 2,430 minutes in 2020-21 to just 1,596 minutes this past season.
For some – Dominic Calvert-Lewin of Everton and Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford are prime examples – seriously curtailed seasons may have been the result of being lightly involved in the tournament.
“It was a double whammy for them – they weren’t playing much in the tournament so were probably only involved in lighter training sessions but then had time off in pre-season, so missed the benefits of that,” Dinnery says. “The importance of a proper pre-season can’t be understated. Research shows the more pre-season you’re involved with, the more robust you are and able to cope with the rigours of the season.”
Gareth Bale: There are way too many games – without players there is no product
Fresh from leading Wales to the World Cup, Gareth Bale has insisted that ‘something needs to change’ in regards to the sheer volume of matches that footballers have to play next year.
“Someone mentioned on the table at lunch that Kevin De Bruyne could play 79 games next season, and have a three-week break,” Bale said. “It is too much. Things obviously need to change. I think every player will tell you there are way too many games – it is impossible to play at a high level for that amount of games and there will be consequences in the long term. People’s bodies can’t deal with that kind of calendar year after year.
“Something has to change. People at the top of the game have to do something but, unfortunately, money comes into it – they want to make more money and it’s a business at the end of the day. For player welfare, money needs to be overlooked and you need to look after the players because without the players, there’s no product.”
Those who work with individual athletes confirm many have experienced burnout.
“It is a brutal schedule they have. Players are running into their third year, pedal to the metal. That comes not just with physical stresses but psychological ones too,” says Brian Moore, CEO of sports science firm Orecco.
“The law of diminishing marginal returns is going to apply. You put more and more in, you get less out. Players are describing getting over-reached or under-recovered. They’re reporting feeling like they’re playing with the handbrake on. That’s what you’re dealing with – players whose fatigue is being compounded by not getting enough rest or recovery. All of their systems are getting overworked and that puts them at risk of soft tissue injuries.”
To combat the demands on the players, clubs are pouring millions into their performance teams and looking to science, data and technology to give them the edge.
Liverpool have bought in the services of Zone7, a Silicon Valley artificial intelligence firm that has developed an algorithm that can predict injury risk.
But others are starting to look inside the player’s body for answers. Irish sports tech company Orecco work with eight Premier League clubs, as well as top stars like Gabriel Jesus and Richarlison and a host of NBA teams.
They have pioneered the use of regular pin-prick blood tests which are administered a couple of days after matches and reveal a treasure trove of “bio-markers”.
The blood tests take four minutes and show inflammation levels, oxidative stress and the levels of free radicals in the body. If they go too high it raises red flags and a player can be withdrawn from training or their “training load” can be reduced.
Orecco CEO Moore explains: “Think of players like finely tuned engines – we’re trying to get under the bonnet of that engine. There are so many different factors that go into predicting injuries – age, previous injury history, hydration, sleep patterns, nutrition. But there are consistent patterns you’re seeing pre-injury and so it’s about managing those risks.
“Basically we provide objective data to support decision making for clubs and athletes.”
Moore believes the future is about tailored training plans, incorporating everything from sleep patterns to what players eat. What works for one star might not for another.
Harnessing artificial intelligence, Orecco have created an app which can be downloaded onto a player’s phone and pulls all their data together in one place. It is used by Manchester City star Jesus, and offered to players at clubs they work with including Newcastle, Tottenham Hotspur and Brighton & Hove Albion.
Moore provides i with an exclusive look at it, with players able to toggle through performance data, sleep data, travel schedules, their bio marker levels and club training plans at the touch of a button.
Push notifications send meal plans to their smartphones and reminders about snacks they should eat if they’re about to board a plane to aid with recovery or pre-match nutrition. It automatically syncs with local restaurants wherever they are in the world so if they’re eating out, they can stick to their nutrition plan. It is seriously impressive stuff, intended to give teams and players a “marginal edge” in a world where schedules have never been more packed and the risk of injury or burnout greater.
It’s no wonder Premier League clubs are pouring millions into sports science and performance to combat the growing injury threat.
“There’s been an investment in people, an investment in facilities across the Premier League and an investment in technology as well,” Harley says.
“There’s big performance teams at top clubs – everyone is looking for the edge and what we can do differently. How can we gain an advantage? Teams might jump in to what other clubs are doing.”
The bigger issue is how long authorities can expect players to keep up with such a punishing fixture list. The Nations League, for example, has felt like a jaded afterthought this summer.
“It’s a testament to the squads, the players and the people involved that they have survived as well as they have. It’s going to be a brutally hard year,” Moore says.
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