Sports
Bellingham, Messi and the perils of burnout, incessant football and playing through injury
The sight of Harry Kane shuffling off the field after an hour of ineffective play in the Euro 2024 final was not how most would have expected his tournament to end.
In truth, he probably shouldn’t have been playing at Euro 2024 at all. Kane missed the end of the Bundesliga season with Bayern Munich because of a back injury and was described by his manager Thomas Tuchel as having a “complete blockade” in his back that “bothers him in everyday movements”. The injury was serious enough that it made him a doubt in their Champions League semi-final against Real Madrid in May.
He wasn’t the only player to be hampered. Jude Bellingham was still suffering from the after-effects of a dislocated shoulder in November and may need surgery at some point. For months, Bellingham has been wearing special strapping on his shoulder that enables him to play freely. Some good news for Real Madrid fans is that Kylian Mbappe is unlikely to need surgery on his nose after breaking it while playing for France at the Euros. He played on with a special mask.
Spanish goalkeeper Unai Simon had an operation on his wrist shortly after the tournament, which had been needed for some time. He managed to get through Spain’s victorious Euro 2024 campaign by using painkilling injections.
It was a similar story at the Copa America. You’ll have seen the pictures of Lionel Messi in tears, his ankle looking about twice the size it should have been after suffering an injury in the final. He had already had to nurse his way to that final after suffering a groin problem in Argentina’s second game against Chile.
His Inter Miami team-mate Luis Suarez will also miss the upcoming MLS All-Star game with what has been described as “knee discomfort”, presumably related to the chronic knee issue he has had to manage for the past few years.
Bournemouth’s Tyler Adams will be on the sidelines when the Premier League season begins after having back surgery. The United States midfielder also played through the issue at Copa America and probably should have had the operation earlier.
“He wanted to play Copa America because it was very important for him,” his Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola said, “but he had restrictions and was still in pain, so two days after they were knocked out, he had surgery.”
But perhaps more than all of that, many of the biggest players just looked exhausted.
“It’s so tough with crazy schedules and then coming together for the end of the season for one last tournament,” said Bellingham after the final. “It’s difficult on the body — mentally and physically you are exhausted.”
Jude Bellingham was shattered at Euro 2024 (Stu Forster/Getty Images)
Bellingham, 21, played 54 games for club and country in a season that spanned 11 months, from the second week in August to the middle of July. Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti tried to manage Bellingham’s game time, giving him the odd week off here and there, but even when he was left on the bench at times, Ancelotti put up the Jude signal, pressing him into action — shoulder strapping and all.
It’s no wonder Bellingham was tired — but his workload was relatively light compared to others. Manchester United’s seemingly indestructible Bruno Fernandes got through 5,399 minutes last season. William Saliba, an ever-present for Arsenal in the Premier League, and Germany captain Ilkay Gundogan also got more than 5,000 minutes under their belts. “It has been a very demanding season,” said Gundogan during Euro 2024, with some understatement.
Julian Alvarez might not have played the same number of minutes (a ‘mere’ 3,480 for Manchester City), but his schedule has been brutal. His season began on August 11 (August 6 if you count the Community Shield), playing for Manchester City until May, with his longest break between games coming in at 13 days. Fifteen days after the FA Cup final, he appeared in his first pre-Copa game for Argentina. He played two friendlies before starting all but one of their games during the tournament, then, after a luxurious break of 10 days, he was in the team for Argentina’s opening game at the Olympics, that marathon game against Morocco.
The men’s gold medal game is on August 9, so his 2023-24 season could last almost exactly a year, with only a couple of fortnight breaks between games. City play the Community Shield the day after — you hope they don’t demand he hops on the Eurostar to take part in that one.
All of which backs up the point being made by FIFPro, the global players’ union, and some of the leading European leagues as they issue a legal complaint against FIFA, accusing football’s governing body of presiding over an international calendar that is “beyond saturation”.
FIFPro said: “The schedule has become unsustainable for national leagues and a risk for the health of players. FIFA’s decisions over the last years have repeatedly favoured its own competitions and commercial interests, neglected its responsibilities as a governing body, and harmed the economic interests of national leagues and the welfare of players.”
It is worth pointing out that any complaints from Premier League teams about overwhelming scheduling rings slightly hollow. They conduct lengthy pre-season and post-season tours, which involve heavy travel as well as games. Chelsea are playing five games in 13 days in a pre-season tour spanning basically the whole continental United States. Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle United flew to Australia the day after the last Premier League season finished.
After Copa America, Julian Alvarez went to the Olympics (Arnaud Finistre/AFP/Getty Images)
The point remains that the approach of FIFA — and most other governing bodies, including UEFA — to scheduling has consistently been ‘more is more’. The expansion of the World Cup from 2026, the revamped Champions League format, the new Club World Cup, the Nations League and whatever other brilliant wheezes they can dream up, all mean it is technically possible for an elite men’s player to play 87 games next season. No player will actually be on the pitch that many times, but it illustrates the point FIFPro is making. There is too much football, and even if you don’t really care about player burnout, the overwhelming amount of games devalues the whole thing.
“You start in August and until May you don’t stop,” said Mikel Oyarzabal, scorer of Spain’s winner in the Euro 2024 final. “Then in June there is the national team and after that a Club World Cup. They will finish up in July and then, a few weeks later, the league starts again. It needs to be turned back, but it is not up to us (players). We have to adapt as best we can.”
Oyarzabal is a good example of why FIFPro has launched this action, beyond the general fatigue and devaluing of the game.
In the summer of 2021, Oyarzabal played at the European Championship and then the Olympics, with 16 days between his last game at the former and the first at the latter. He played 104 minutes of Spain’s defeat in the gold medal match in Japan, then a week later he was back on domestic duty with Real Sociedad. Later that season, he suffered a cruciate ligament injury that kept him out for nine months and made him miss the World Cup.
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You could argue there is an element of personal responsibility here: Oyarzabal could have skipped the Olympics if he wanted, but it’s the Olympics, an experience that any athlete would love to have. It’s harsh to blame individual players for wanting to make the most of their short careers just because administrators don’t know the meaning of the phrase ‘less is more’.
We can’t definitively draw a line between an excess of games and that specific injury, but it surely doesn’t help.
“It’s about having sufficient time to recover in between each match,” says Nick Worth, a consultant sports physiotherapist who has worked with several football clubs, about why too many games are problematic. “The physical demands mean players are more likely to get injured because they’re playing in a fatigued state.”
Clubs generally do their best to regulate the number of games their key players appear in and have a variety of methods to judge when the players are reaching their capacity and need a rest. But those methods are not infallible: “It’s an indicator rather than being a decision-maker,” says Worth. But also the sheer number of games — and, perhaps more to the point, the commercial and sporting importance placed on those games — means it can be difficult to determine which ones a player can miss.
Euro 2024 hero Oyarzabal complained about scheduling (Ina Fassbender/AFP/Getty Images)
Even friendlies aren’t safe. Take the game Inter Miami played in Hong Kong last February. Messi didn’t play in that game because of a groin injury, but then did in a subsequent fixture in Japan a few days later, which sparked outrage. Tatler, which sponsored the event, gave 50 per cent refunds to outraged spectators after saying it was “let down along with all of you”, while a local politician described it as a “calculated snub to Hong Kong”.
There is also the desire from the players involved to play in games that, from a medical perspective, they probably shouldn’t have done. All of those who played through injury at the Euros and the Copa this summer probably would have rested had these been run-of-the-mill, mid-season league games.
FIFPro has also raised concerns about excessive pain-killing injections that are often given to players to squeeze a few more minutes or games out of them. “That happens less often than people imagine,” says Worth, but he also cautions that there is “an element of jeopardy about those decisions”.
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The risk is not the injections themselves, but the fact they mask the pain that serves as the body’s way of letting the player know they are injured. “So there are times people play with pain-killing injections, but the risk is you might make something worse without someone knowing it,” says Worth.
The point is that at both the major tournaments this summer, despite brilliant play, thrilling moments and new heroes, the overall spectacle was diminished because the biggest stars either got injured, were playing with existing injuries or were simply exhausted.
“We are human beings, not machines,” the former Liverpool and West Ham goalkeeper Adrian told The Athletic this week. “We need a balance, for the fans to enjoy football, too. We need to be fresh and able to play. There are no movies without actors.”
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Additional reporting: Dermot Corrigan
(Top photos: Jude Bellingham by Alex Grimm; Lionel Messi by Buda Mendes; both via Getty Images)
NORMAN, Okla. — No. 7 Alabama (8-3) saw its College Football Playoff and SEC title hopes take a big hit in a 24-3 loss to Oklahoma (6-5) at OU Memorial Stadium on Saturday.
Alabama QB Jalen Milroe completed just two passes in the first half before finishing 11-for-26 for 164 yards, zero touchdowns and three interceptions. The Crimson Tide’s first two drives of the third quarter resulted in Milroe interceptions, the second of which was returned 49 yards for a touchdown by Oklahoma’s Kip Lewis. Oklahoma outgained Alabama 325 yards to 234, driven largely by the Sooners’ 257 rushing yards.
“We finally did the things that winning requires,” Oklahoma coach Brent Venables said after the game. “All three phases, they complemented each other. They punched first and punched back. Tonight, we finally punched last.”
This was the lowest-scoring output for the Crimson Tide since a 20-3 loss to South Carolina in 2004. Alabama hasn’t lost to an unranked team by 21-plus points since the 1998 Music City Bowl against Virginia Tech (38-7).
The Crimson Tide are 1-3 on the road against SEC opponents this season, while the Sooners secured their first Power 4 win since Sept. 28 against Auburn.
“The harder it is, the more epic the story.”
Brent Venables after @OU_Football‘s win over No. 7 Alabama 🔥 pic.twitter.com/Dytz9r0FQa
— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) November 24, 2024
What does this mean for Alabama’s postseason hopes?
The Tide no longer control their own destiny and are now a Playoff long shot. They had the inside path to the CFP as the second-highest-ranked SEC team, with a 5-5 Oklahoma team and 4-6 Auburn team left on the schedule. That’s all been blown up.
CFP-wise, the Tide will now fall behind Georgia, which won Saturday and has just two losses, as well as Tennessee, which has a win against Alabama. Losses by Indiana, Ole Miss, BYU, Texas A&M and Colorado on Saturday could help the Tide from falling too far back and keep them on the fringes of the at-large mix, but getting a first-round home is off the table. The big winner from Saturday’s madness could be the ACC’s hopes of getting two bids. According to The Athletic’s projections model, Alabama fell from a 76 percent chance to make the Playoff before Week 13 to just an 11 percent chance after the loss to Oklahoma.
Alabama’s SEC championship hopes are also gone with three conference losses. Georgia will meet the winner of Texas-Texas A&M in Atlanta.
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What does this mean for Oklahoma?
It’s been a rough season for the Sooners, who hadn’t won a game against an FBS opponent since September, but getting to bowl eligibility and a marquee win on Senior Night has to feel good. For as bad as the year has gone, through all the quarterback problems and offensive issues, the defense kept playing hard and kept the Sooners in games. Two interceptions led directly to 14 points, including a pick-six to go up three scores.
Oklahoma’s 257 rushing yards were the most allowed by Alabama this year. Quarterback Jackson Arnold didn’t do much in the passing game (68 yards total), but he didn’t have to. The offensive coordinator search remains ongoing, and the Sooners can’t have another season like this, but it’s something to feel good about as Venables heads into an offseason needing to fix the program.
Kip doesn’t like teams from Alabama…@KipLewis9 | #OUDNA pic.twitter.com/jCLU5BjI6G
— Oklahoma Football (@OU_Football) November 24, 2024
An all-too-familiar fate for Alabama on the road this season
Vanderbilt. Tennessee. Now Oklahoma. Alabama’s three road losses have a common thread: costly turnovers. The latest misfortunes came in a game that might have eliminated the Tide from the Playoff.
Three second-half interceptions by Milroe arrived at critical times. Milroe’s 11-for-26 passing stat line with three turnovers mark his worst performance of the season. It was one part of an all-around, flat offensive performance — 234 yards, just 70 on the ground, and only 4.1 yards per play.
Oklahoma’s top-ranked rushing defense was keyed in on Milroe-designed runs from the start, allowing three rushing yards on his first eight carries. Milroe finished with just seven rushing yards on 15 attempts while Jam Miller and Justice Haynes combined for 15 carries total. Without that element, Alabama’s offense couldn’t establish any momentum. It didn’t hurt that there were a myriad of mental errors that cost the offense positive plays from drops, missed assignments and penalties.
Defensively, Saturday’s loss felt similar to Alabama’s first road loss at Vanderbilt — out-played at the line of scrimmage and out-game planned against a sound rushing attack. Despite an 83rd national rank in rush offense, Oklahoma gained over 250 yards on the ground, 128 of them by quarterback Jackson Arnold, who only passed for 68 yards.
It was a summation of Alabama’s season to date — dominant at times, appearing capable of playing with anyone, and other times disjointed where errors compile on each other which creates sometimes insurmountable deficits. There’s no other way to look at Saturday’s game as a collapse in a crucial spot, but not a moment that’s been unfamiliar this season-highs followed by lows.
How did Oklahoma win the game? Turning its season on its head
Oklahoma’s season has been marred by misfortune, but Saturday night had all of the elements for a top-10 upset. The Sooners were off by a bye, hosting Alabama on Senior Night with bowl eligibility on the line. On the field, Oklahoma turned its weaknesses into strengths.
Oklahoma entered Saturday night having given up the most sacks (41) and fourth-most tackles for loss (80) in the country. Saturday? Zero sacks allowed and four tackles for loss allowed.
Oklahoma entered Saturday with the 86th-ranked rushing offense in the country (143 yards per game). Saturday? 270 rushing yards on 2.3 yards per carry.
Oklahoma entered Saturday ranked 73rd in turnover margin (minus-1) and 107th in turnovers lost (18). Saturday? Oklahoma won the turnover battle by a plus-1 margin and scored 14 points off turnovers.
Oklahoma entered Saturday ranked 105th nationally in time of possession (28 minutes). Saturday? Behind its dominant run game, the Sooners converted 7-of-15 third-down tries and held the ball for over 35 minutes.
In a day of home underdogs pulling off upsets, Venables delivered a signature win and a subsequent field storming, Oklahoma’s first since 2000.
The play that defined the 4th quarter
For a brief moment, it appeared Alabama regained momentum to start a comeback. On a fourth-and-2, down 24-3 with 14:13 to play, Milroe rolled out and found Ryan Williams about 40 yards downfield for a highlight-level touchdown with Williams getting one foot down in the corner of the end zone. However, the officiating crew threw a flag for illegal touching on Williams, wiping away the score.
Alabama thought they scored on this fourth down play from Ryan Williams but the play was overturned due to illegal touching. pic.twitter.com/25U0QuLjQH
— ESPN (@espn) November 24, 2024
It was a puzzling call in the moment and on replay, as Williams didn’t appear to be out of order pre-snap or during the play, but after the initial call and a referee meeting, the call stood and Oklahoma took over on downs. Alabama never reached Oklahoma territory again.
(Photo: David Stacy / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The Dallas Cowboys defeated the Washington Commanders, 34-26, on Sunday in their Week 12 NFC East battle. And that’s probably the easiest way to describe what occurred in the game
The score was 3-3 at halftime and Dallas took a 10-9 lead with 4:40 left in the third quarter when Cooper Rush found Jalen Tolbert for a 6-yard touchdown. It seemed like it was going to be a defensive battle with no real scoring going on for either team.
Then, the fourth quarter happened.
Dallas Cowboys quarterback Cooper Rush passes against the Washington Commanders, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024, in Landover, Maryland. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
The Cowboys took a 20-9 lead over the Commanders after Rush found tight end Luke Schoonmaker for a 22-yard touchdown. It seemed like it was enough for the Cowboys to close out the game as there was only 5:16 left.
Jayden Daniels sparked a roaring comeback. He found Zach Ertz for a 4-yard touchdown pass to cut the deficit to three.
Dallas struck back with a special teams play. Austin Seibert kicked the ball down the field. Returner KaVontae Turpin fumbled the ball initially, picked it up, made a spin move and then was gone. He galloped 99 yards for the score and the Cowboys had a 10-point lead.
The Commanders drove down the field in six plays to set up Seibert for a 51-yard field goal. Dallas went three-and-out on its next possession. But inexplicably made a bad mistake on defense.
Daniels found wide receiver Terry McLaurin and the veteran found space around Cowboys defenders and took the ball into the end zone. One play, 86 yards. Washington could have tied the game but Seibert missed the point-after attempt. The Commanders were down 27-26.
Seibert tried the onside kick to recover it, but the ball bounced to Dallas player Juanyeh Thomas, who for some reason returned the ball 43 yards for a touchdown. It gave the Commanders one final drive. It would have been an even bigger calamity if Daniels found similar magic as he did against the Chicago Bears.
Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels (5) celebrates after running for a 17-yard touchdown during the second half of an NFL football game against the Dallas Cowboys, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024, in Landover, Md. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
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Luckily, for the Cowboys, Daniels’ Hail Mary attempt was batted down and the Cowboys picked up the win.
The two teams combined for 31 points in the fourth quarter.
Rush was solid enough to get the win for the Cowboys. He was 24-of-32 with 247 passing yards and two touchdown passes. Schoonmaker had three catches for 55 yards. Tolbert had two catches for 22 yards.
CeeDee Lamb led Dallas with 10 catches for 67 yards.
The Commanders had three turnovers. Daniels had two interceptions – one to Chauncey Golston and the other to Israel Mukuamu. Commanders tight end John Bates also fumbled.
The rookie quarterback was 25-of-38 with 275 yards and two touchdown passes. He also led the team with 74 rushing yards and had a rushing touchdown.
Dallas Cowboys tight end Luke Schoonmaker, center, celebrates after scoring a 22-yard touchdown against the Washington Commanders, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024, in Landover, Maryland. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
McLaurin had five catches for 102 yards.
Dallas improved to 4-7 on the season and Washington fell to 7-5.
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HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS
CITY SECTION
Friday’s schedule
Open Division
Narbonne vs. San Pedro at El Camino College, 6 p.m.
Saturday’s schedule
at Birmingham High
Division I
Palisades vs. King/Drew, 6 p.m.
Division II
South Gate vs. Chatsworth, 2:30 p.m.
Division III
Panorama vs. Van Nuys, 11 a.m.
SOUTHERN SECTION
Friday’s schedule
(all games 7 p.m. unless noted)
Division 1
Mater Dei vs. St. John Bosco at Veterans Stadium
Division 3
Simi Valley vs. Edison at Huntington Beach
Division 5
La Serna at Palos Verdes
Division 7
Warren vs. Rio Hondo Prep, site TBA
Division 8
St. Pius X-St. Matthias vs. Serrano at St. Pius X
Division 11
El Rancho at Portola
Division 12
Palmdale at Carter
Saturday’s schedule
(all games 7 p.m. unless noted)
Division 2
Newbury Park at Murrieta Valley
Division 4
Oxnard Pacifica vs. St. Bonaventure at Rio Mesa
Division 6
Murrieta Mesa vs. Glendora at Citrus College
Division 9
Long Beach Wilson at Highland
Division 10
Silverado at St. Anthony
Division 13
Gahr at Pasadena
Division 14
San Gabriel at Pioneer
8-man Division 2
Lancaster Baptist at Avalon, 3 p.m.
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