davelyncooper said:
please explain to me why a professional footballer cannot be expected to be fit enough to play two/three games a week. Just cut back on the training regime and give the best players the time to play competitive matches together.
If it was a one of period of 3 games in 8 days it might be OK, but it's not. It goes on for a month
There are several issues here. There could be some players recovering from joint injuries who just can not play so many games back to back.
Also how many times do you see a team play a big match away in Europe, and then struggle in their next Premiership game (particularly if it's away in the Premiership). Ferguson used to go mad if he found out that Utd had Premiership away fixtures after Champions League Match-Days. There are possibly mental as well as physical reasons here
Pro athletes get more rest than most as they don't have to juggle jobs, but there's still a limit on the body's ability to recover from intense exercise.
If you exercise when you are not fully recovered, you will very quickly pick up injuries. The muscles themselves are innervated by nerve fibres, and muscles always act together in a system across a joint. When the body is tired, the nerves don't fire properly and the muscles don't contract together and you can get tears etc.
More likely the player will just not play at his best. Football is so competitive now, that you have to be close to 100%. If you have 6 or 7 players operating at slightly below their maximum you are going to struggle.
Anyone who trains will be aware of heavy limbs and soreness after exercise which persists for 3 days or so
Listen to athletes who compete in meets. They often complain that they were slightly sub-par because they had not got the travel out of their system. Look at the difficulty for distance athletes like Mo farah in winning 5km and 10km races at a Championship, and footballers run over 5km a game, and many of them will be sprinting at the maximum for short periods in games.