Finding free dates for recoveries of postponed matches is a big problem.
On 25 April the missing nineteen minutes of Udinese-Roma were made up, a match originally scheduled for the 14th of the same month and suspended due to an illness suffered on the pitch by the Giallorossi defender Evan Ndicka (Roma won 1-2, ed.) . And the second match postponed in the last periodand always for similar reasons: on 17 March it was the case of Atalanta-Fiorentina, postponed to a later date due to the heart attack that struck, on the morning of the match, the Viola’s general manager Joe Barone, who immediately appeared in desperate conditions and died two days later at the San Raffaele hospital in Milan.
A problem immediately arose, as inconvenient and miserable to say as it was pressing in the demands of that meat grinder of football entertainment. That is to say: when to catch up on the races? Yes, because three of the four teams involved are involved in European cups, and Atalanta and Fiorentina were already called to face each other in the semi-finals of the Italian Cup, with the consequence that one of the two would certainly also be on the pitch on 15 May, the day set for the Italian Cup final.
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We can’t even talk about the scheduling of Atalanta-Fiorentina for the moment. When both passed their respective rounds of the Europa and Conference League, the prospect of playing every three days until the end of May opened up for both. To date, the first available dates are those of the European finals (22 and 29 May) between the final rounds of the championship, and naturally remain linked to the failure of at least one of the two Italians to progress to the next round. If the Dea were eliminated by Marseille, the 22nd would become a useful day for recovery. If the lilies were defeated by Bruges, the May 29 slot would also be available. If both reached their final, however, we would talk about it again in Junein a very short time anyway, because the European Championship is looming: the continental competition begins on 14 June (Italy will debut the following day against Albania), and the Azzurri will take to the field on 4 June for the first preparatory friendly.
The situation for Udinese-Roma was certainly not simpler. In the Giallorossi’s calendar there were two windows: April 25th and the week of the Italian Cup final, therefore presumably May 16th. Both dates posed problems. The first, if more in line with the indications of the League regulations on recoveries, meant two away games in three days for De Rossi’s team, with the practical impossibility of trying to bring forward the following match in Naples in view of the semi-final against Leverkusen (who, already German champions, will instead play on Saturday). Even the second option, however, would once again have meant two close matches away from home (Roma are in Bergamo on 12 May, a clash perhaps decisive for the Champions League) and would have made it impossible to advance to the next day in view of the possible final on the 22nd.
Daniele De Rossi’s words on the added time of 20 minutes against Udinese
The decision to resume Udinese-Roma on Liberation Day came after an extraordinary meeting of the League council, e caused great disappointment in the Giallorossi home. It is not confirmed, but it would seem that Roma preferred May 16th as the date, if not the possibility (considering Atalanta’s ranking situation) of postponing the decision to hope for a contemporary scheduling of Atalanta-Fiorentina. Despite the art. 30, paragraph 3 of the League regulations was quite stringent with respect to the times and methods of recovery of the match, the inappropriate statements by Claudio Lotito on the sidelines of the Forza Italia National Council, to say the least, betrayed widespread annoyance, in the council, for the situation created.
If the tragic postponement of Atalanta-Fiorentina had only caused the irritation due to the disturbances to the calendars to boil in the depths of the social chaos, that of Udinese-Roma saw it cross the decision-making bodies of football. Paradoxically, it was the truthful but lucid Daniele De Rossi who extinguished (not without dispensing reproaches) the mounting controversies on the Giallorossi side. In the end, it happens every time: the mixing of sporting passions, of fan rivalries, with the very modest credibility of football institutions always makes the persecutory psychosis and largely dehumanizing opposing hostility. Such as, for example, calling for recovery of the two matches in question on the same evening or the following day. In this regard, it is enough to consider that on 17 March various Fiorentina players remained at Barone’s bedside in hospital until late at night: no one could ever have thought of playing the following day. And for some of them, it wasn’t the first sad experience of its kind.
“We in the world of football should be more sensitive. If someone puts the interest of a life before us we should all agree“. These, among others, were De Rossi’s words on the eve of Roma-Bologna. But sensitivity cannot be reconciled with the concept of “the show must go on“. On a different occasion, the Viola club itself as well as the League had lacked such tact, when little or nothing was done to postpone Fiorentina-Juventus to the beginning of November, in days of the Campi Bisenzio flood. It was the organized Gigliati supporters – involved in the area together with many other volunteers – who called for the postponement of the match, then deserting the match with a conspicuous, and emblematic, void left in the central sector of the Fiesole curve.
The Curva Fiesole without the support organized in the last Fiorentina – Juventus match
Actually, it seems really anachronistic to talk about sensitivity in football today. The Acerbi-Juan Jesus case of a few weeks ago, treated as a matter of law, is just a clear example of this. But specifically, the enormous economic interests of the ball system and its tendency to multiply the sporting events to be capitalized have, among the various consequences, that of an achieved saturation of the sporting calendars. We always play, like in the NBA. Any postponement of a match becomes a problem that is difficult to resolve even with good will. Too many issues come into play, issues that involve small and large economic burdens: from the cumbersome complex of television screenings of the races to the increasingly expensive tickets, a precious liquidity resource for the clubs. Therefore good will is not enough, interests must be touched, choices must be made. Which no one seems really willing to do.
Yet, the problem of “too many games” is not something new, in fact it is a affair which has been discussed, in vain, for a long time and which FIFA and UEFA are getting worse every season, always bringing out new critical issues. From the merely strategic ones – we will reach the point of saturation not only of the calendars, but also of the request of football? – those relating to the psychophysical health of workers. If it is certainly forced to find a direct correlation between Barone and Ndicka’s illnesses and too many matches, it is certain that the stress loads of the athletes (and the various members) are not sustainable endlessly. A delicate topic, which has emerged in the debate in the sporting world for some time, and which has seen real coming out of professionals regarding their mental and consequently athletic health.
Of course, this is not a detailed topic at the sports bubble, but a dynamic present in society as a whole, where the tendency towards the compression and permanent occupation of free time, the filling of every moment of pause and the categorical rejection of downtime, of boredom, are a current and urgent problem. Athletes have – allow me – only the privilege and resources to bring the problem to light. Despite this, however, they still clash with consolidated interests, such as to fuel that lack of empathy complained by De Rossi. A solution, however banal, incidental to the world of football and temporary, would be to give the teams some breathing space. Empty the calendars a bit, reduce the games, reduce the teams that make up the series and groups. Needless to say, the trend today is the opposite: the new formats of the Champions League and the Club World Cup mean a further increase in the number of matches to be played during the year. Since August 2022, Atalanta have played 86 matches (they will reach at least 95 in a month), Roma 102, Fiorentina even 108. Is there still room for sensitivity?
2024-04-26 12:05:27
#football #calendar #saturated
