MONACO: Jude Bellingham and Rodri have key starring roles for title-winning soccer clubs and their national teams. Neither is currently playing matches. Both are being carefully managed early in another congested season that shapes to keep both busy well into July. Again.
Bellingham’s Real Madrid and Rodri’s Manchester City have more games in a deeper Champions League schedule through January, and both teams qualified for a new month-long FIFA club tournament in the United States to end the season.
The relentless two-games-per-week schedule — almost routine in top-level European soccer since the pandemic-delayed 2019-20 season — is fueling concern about burning out the best players with expanded international events.
Bellingham was sidelined 10 days into Madrid’s competitive season which started just one month after he was on the losing England team against Spain in the European Championship final.
Announcing his muscle injury on Aug. 23, the 21-year-old star acknowledged “maybe my body is telling me it needs a bit more rest after a busy year.”
Rodri was essential last season, the Euro 2024 player of the tournament who never lost a game with Spain, nor in the Premier League to help Man City win a fourth straight title.
“I do need a rest,” Rodri famously said in April after a 3-3 draw at Madrid in the Champions League quarterfinals. Man City’s title defence ended in a penalty shootout after the second leg also was drawn.
Now Rodri is resting in Manchester, missing the first two rounds in the English Premier League. His club said he is being eased back after on a personal training program after a 63-game season.
Man City’s intense August-to-July schedule was highlighted by Portugal defender Rúben Dias in a social media post with a laughter emoji.
“It’s impossible to maintain an optimal level of performance,” Dani Carvajal, the Madrid and Spain defender, said this month. “I think that should be analyzed by the people in charge of football.”
As European champion, Madrid also must play a FIFA Intercontinental Cup game in December, possibly in Qatar.
European soccer body UEFA agreed to a new and bigger Champions League format that starts September 17 after being pressured for years by storied and wealthy clubs like Madrid.
“The need to play regular matches in Europe is a need from the clubs, it’s not a need for UEFA,” one of its senior officials, Giorgio Marchetti, said Wednesday in Monaco ahead of the Champions League draw.
The influential European Club Association, now led by Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser al-Khelaifi, pushed hard for more high-profile games to drive up revenue. That typically pays for higher transfer fees and player salaries.
“It’s amazing also for the players,” Al-Khelaifi told reporters in Monaco. “They prefer to play matches than to train.”
PSG, Madrid and Man City are among the 12 European clubs that qualified for the 32-team Club World Cup that FIFA will relaunch in June.
European clubs once did not want the Club World Cup, also seeing a risk to the status of the Champions League though FIFA scheduled it only in 2025 and 2029.
The clubs have long expected to earn tens of millions of dollars in FIFA prize money from playing up to seven games, though the tournament’s commercial strategy is still unclear even with Saudi Arabian backing.
