Real Madrid Kylian Mbappe has sparked a minor controversy in France after withdrawing from their international squad for the October international break, citing an injury concern.
French outlet Foot Mercato insist that Mbappe’s claims of an injury are a smokescreen, and that had made clear during France’s September camp that he would not be making himself available for October’s squad; instead, he took a holiday in Stockholm.
Some speculate that Mbappe only wants to play in ‘important games’ for France, and that he is trying to put himself in a position to make a concerted push for the Ballon d’Or in 2025.
Kylian Mbappe's international withdrawal could be a symptom of fixture congestion
Whatever the reasons, Mbappe has been criticised in the French media, with former international midfielder Jerome Rothen calling for Mbappe to be stripped of the captaincy. Teammates and manager Didier Deschamps have meanwhile defended the forward, however, believing the whole thing to be a storm in a teacup.
“In his private life, he does what he wants,” Deschamps said. “I’m not just defending him for the sake of it. The issue is that his private life isn’t private. That’s not the case for you guys, and you're fine with that.”
Real Madrid and Les Bleus teammate Aurelien Tchouamneni added: “I think too much is being made of this … Every time it’s about Kylian, it gets blown out of proportion.”
All very dramatic, and as a non-Frenchman, hard to get too het up about. Deschamps is right that media scrutiny of players’ private movements is excessive, and exactly the kind of thing players take holidays to try and get away from in the first place.
Not everything about a player’s state of mind is or should be made public. Even if we accept the claims that he is not really injured, there are a million legitimate but private reasons Mbappe might have felt he needed some rare time off, any one of which Deschamps and the French setup may have agreed with and accepted.
We’re not claiming to be unique in this or looking for sympathy: anybody who travels a lot for work and works irregular shifts will tell you the same things. But as journalists who cover football and are tied to its rhythms, we can tell you that the calendar is exhausting.
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Players rarely get significant time off in congested fixture calendar
When we talk about players being tired and fatigued, it’s not just the impact of the games themselves. Take it from us, shifting from evening work one day to getting up early for a lunchtime kick-off on the other side of the country a couple of days later is the number one downside of this job we are very fortunate to have. For nine to eleven months of the year, there is no rhythm to your routine or sleep cycle whatsoever, and it can grind you down quite severely if you don’t look after yourself with regular breaks.
Clubs and national teams have a duty of care to players, but must balance that out with their own competitive objectives. It’s easy to take the stance that if managers are so concerned about fixture pile-ups they should rotate more – but there are pressures that prevent it from happening as much as it should.
Regular starters are exactly that because they are hugely important to their teams, and practically every game is treated with such seriousness that it makes it difficult for managers to think too much about the long term good. Risking the next three points could mean the difference between winning the title or not, or getting relegated or not.
There’s a type of fan – and a type of media – that loves nothing more than to become wildly conspiratorial about anything and everything, while as Mbappe has found, any absence exposes players to accusations of a lack of commitment to the shirt - such as the one Brazilian president Lulu unleashed this week. As such, it is often easier just to put down a player’s absence to a slight injury issue and hope no further questions are asked.
If players are to be put in a position where they feel they have to skip games to get any relief from the relentlessness of the calendar, then the less important international games will naturally be the first to go. As Tchouameni commented, the Nations League is ‘not exactly the tournament of the century’.
More importantly, the clubs pay the wages. Most club games have more at stake than most internationals outside major tournaments – particularly for those countries whose qualification is taken as a given. Yes, these players are extremely well-compensated, but you can’t buy rest.
Let’s be honest, it’s been happening for years. Every international squad that’s announced is invariably followed by a small number of players withdrawing with minor issues that are then usually resolved by the time domestic fixtures resume.
Expanding tournaments to include more teams – and thus more games doesn’t help, and the expanded Club World Cup that will kick off next summer only adds yet another more to the grind.
If there is one major area where the clubs need to look at themselves, it is in those cash-rich far-flung summer tournaments abroad that big clubs are now so fond of taking part in. That, really, is pretty well indefensible at a time when they are also asking the powers that be to look at reducing the burden of constant fixtures.
But trying to make sure there is scarcely an uninterrupted period with no football whatsoever, FIFA and their subsidiary authorities actually risk watering down what they already have. Once the players stop caring about certain games, what reason do we still have to be interested?
