The bottom line is there are too many competitions and too few days in a year to seriously compete in everything.
Seems like every football organization has a competition or maybe two to try and get more cash into their coffers. Some competitions are older and some are newer but the common denominator is that nobody seems willing to give an inch to accommodate one another and, ultimately, the players who are supposed to play the games.
You've got the league, two domestic cups, a domestic SuperCup, a continental Supercup, a continental Champions League and if you fall out of that on a certain stage, a backup-champions league.
They are adding a third continental competition in Europe and talking about expanding the number of matches played in the Champions League group stage. Apparently FIFA is going to make the Club World Cup more like the other world cup, with 32 teams playing every four years so that will have to be tucked into the overall calendar somehow.
There's always been international football but now along with World Cup and European qualifiers (and finals), we've got the Nations League and then the Nations League playoffs (Robbo) to add more fixtures to the calendar. They are going to expand the World cup schedule after this next one and I'm sure there are some other things in the works.
It is clear that football players these days play too many matches, and in reality (unlike in Football Manager) - you can't have a 40-player squad to accommodate all of it. The close season seems to get shorter and shorter and that HAS to impact players fitness and longevity over the course of their careers.
I don't know if the club will continue to approach the League Cup this way. We may not always be playing in the Club World Cup but even when we don't there's still too many fixtures. Some people say England should not having a 2nd domestic cup, but I don't think the interests of 5 or 6 clubs should be the tail wagging the dog for the other 86 or whatever it is in the top four tiers of the pyramid.
It may be that teams who qualify for the Champions League or European football in general should not play in it in those years, but I would not be in favor of scrapping the League Cup. I think the idea of a Club World Championship is logical, but there is such a disparity in the level of football between UEFA, South America and the rest of the world it will always be imperfect.
Ultimately something will have to give. Everyone associated with Liverpool has been bending over backward to reassure the kids who played last night that they did themselves proud, and rightfully so, but more often than not this is the type of result you will get with that sort of matchup. If we are OK with sending our kids (and not even our best kids) out to take a hiding like that - for the sake of the experience - OK, but I think at some point the EFL or the FA or both will have show a little wisdom in order to preserve players and the integrity of their competitions.
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