English soccer is in the spotlight during the year-end holidays — just where it likes it, writes Gabriele Marcotti. He examines the year-end traditions acrossEurope, where leagues break for the holidays for two or three weeks or longer, but leagues in England and Scotland actually play more with games on Dec. 26 — Boxing Day, a national holiday — andeither New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, depending on the calendar.
Seen as a way to get men out of the house and off the booze on the day after Christmas or on Dec. 31 or Jan. 1, theBritish tradition of soccer during the holidays is now driven by something else. Big crowds over the holidays mean big money, and the EPL has the international market all to itself for televisionviewers around the world.
That explains why the EPL continues to play its crowded schedule with as many as four games in nine days despite concerns that it hurts the national team.England has not won a major tournament since 1966 while Germany with the longest winter break of Europe’s major soccer-playing nations continues to overachieve.
Of the 109 players whoappeared in the World Cup or European Championship final since 2004, just 15 had spent the season in the Premier League. But as Marcotti suggests, there’s a flipside: “The lack of a winter breakdoesn’t seem to harm English clubs in European competitions like the Champions League or Europa League, which continue well into May. In fact, English clubs have been among the most successful inthose tournaments. Unless you believe a player is fine in May but succumbs to fatigue a month later, it’s hard to blame the winter break.”
The lack of a winter break causes mental fatigue come July, and that’s where the english fall down during WC years. But it’s not english players, it’s the league. Robin van persie has been lighting up the league this fall. Arsenal have few options, and are one injury away from plummeting down the table because every PL board of directors want to believe the injuries will happen to some other team and they won’t have to spend to secure their place at the table. Wrong. I usually agree with GM but this time I take exception.Remember has well Rooney was playing until the spring of 2010? He totally shut down, and did little at the WC. He was spent, and hasn’t hit that same form since.