For top players, road to the World Cup will go on, and on, and on

NEW YORK – Thomas Tuchel is worried.

The German, England’s new manager, is concerned that his players will be burnt out by the time they arrive in North America next summer for the 2026 World Cup.

“I am not so concerned about the number of games the players play in total,” he said. “I am more concerned that they never have a real break of three to four weeks.”

Tuchel is not the first to raise the issue.

In 2024, FIFPro, the international players’ union, made its feelings known about the demands placed on athletes in the men’s game, echoing concerns expressed by a range of players – including Kylian Mbappe, Jude Bellingham and Rodri – about the lack of breaks from the physical demands of competitive matches.

It will be worse for some than others.

Take Chelsea striker Nicolas Jackson. He has been out injured since February but is expected to be available again soon.

It is unlikely that he will play every game possible and also that Chelsea and his national team, Senegal, will go the distance in every competition they are in. But if they did, he could theoretically be involved in more than 100 matches from now to the end of the World Cup.

Paris Saint-Germain defender Achraf Hakimi could be in a similar position. His most recent significant break from action came last summer – about a month between a couple of World Cup qualifying matches for Morocco and the start of pre-season with his club.

He is unlikely to have another lengthy breather for over a year, with club and international commitments filling his calendar well into the 2026-27 campaign if Morocco qualify for the 2026 World Cup. He could also surpass 100 games in the 470-plus days from now to the World Cup final.

FIFPro’s workload monitoring tool, which keeps track of 1,500 players spread across the globe, reported that 54 per cent of players experienced “excessive or high workload demands” during the 2023-24 season. It highlighted Argentina striker Julian Alvarez, who was involved in 83 match-day squads for club and country during the campaign.

The union is calling for action to prevent player burnout. But there will be no let-up for the foreseeable future. The sport is preparing for a 16-month slog, which includes an Africa Cup of Nations, an expanded Club World Cup, matches in domestic and European competitions, and the biggest World Cup ever with 104 games.

The next 16 months will be dizzying for fans and exhausting for players. Here is an outline of what that schedule will look like for men’s football.

Until May

Steve Bruce, a former Manchester United player and a veteran manager, often speaks about the season hitting a new level of intensity “when the daffodils come out”.

The end of the current international break – this has included World Cup qualifiers and the latter stages of the Nations League – and the arrival of spring bring a non-stop sprint to the finish in the domestic league season.

Premier League clubs have nine more games to play, and two clubs can look forward to two more games in the FA Cup.

The Premier League season ends on May 25, as do La Liga in Spain and Serie A in Italy, while France’s Ligue 1 and the German Bundesliga end a week earlier. In the United States, the Major League Soccer (MLS) regular season, which began in February, continues to October. Some teams will also enter the US Open Cup in the first week of May.

European competitions also finish in May, culminating in the Champions League final in Munich on May 31.

The Concacaf Champions Cup began in February and reaches the quarter-finals in early April, with the semi-finals to follow later the same month and into early May.

June

It was once a familiar sight to see players leaving the final games of the league season in shorts and flip-flops and boarding flights a few hours later to a beach somewhere.

Not this year. The Champions League final and the Concacaf Champions Cup final are on the same weekend and are followed immediately by a nine-day international window. Most European national teams will play two games in World Cup qualifying or the Nations League.

For many players, there will be just a five-day break before the start of the expanded Club World Cup, featuring 32 teams. The winners and runners-up will play seven games in a month – three group matches and four more in the knockout phase – including the final on July 13.

At the same time, the Concacaf Gold Cup will take place in the US and Canada, running from June 14 to July 6.

Those players not involved in internationals or the Club World Cup are not guaranteed a break, either, with clubs increasingly cashing in commercially with overseas post-season tours. United have two games in Malaysia and Hong Kong, while Liverpool are off to Australia.

July

For European clubs, the first week of July is the traditional start of pre-season training.

Many clubs excuse their international players from the first phase to provide a manufactured break, but with the new Premier League season starting in mid-August, the scope for giving players a rest is limited. And clubs are increasingly clocking up air miles for pre-season games in Asia, the US or Australia.

And in the US, the Leagues Cup – the tournament between Liga MX and MLS teams – gets under way in July.

August to November

The first games of the new Premier League season will kick off on the weekend of Aug 16, with La Liga due to begin a few days later and the other major European leagues likely to start about the same time.

For international players, there will be no breaks and many air miles until the end of the season.

There are windows for up to six international games in September, October and November before a relentless sequence of games through Christmas.

October marks the start of the MLS Cup play-offs. Last season’s winners, the LA Galaxy, played five matches en route to being crowned champions, although that figure can be as high as seven, depending on seeding and results.

December and beyond

Some of Africa’s top players will be missing from club duty for up to a month across December and January so they can play in the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco. The four semi-finalists will play seven games in four weeks.

And then from mid-January, the club season will take centre stage again, punctuated by one more two-game international break next March.

A two-game slot for pre-World Cup friendlies will take place in mid-June 2026 before the event itself begins on June 11. And by the time the final is played on July 19, another club pre-season will already be in full swing. NYTIMES