« The club team World Cup will be won by the one who is least worn out »

– I sat at home crying for two days. But it was unthinkable that I would not play tonight. We bandaged my leg hard and I went out on the plane. I had promised my family that I would play. I don’t feel well, but we will work for my leg to recover.

The words are Lautaro Martínez and came after the first semi -final between Inter and Barcelona in the Champions League. The reactions to the Argentine « warrior’s » sacrifice character were exclusively tributes in the Inter joint.

In the breakdown in the Champions League final against PSG three weeks later, Lautaro Martínez played the entire match, but was a shadow of itself.

Inter fell as heavy as you can only in football. On the other side of the Alps were the feelings of a different character.

When Emmanuel Macron held Speech to the PSG players at the Elysée Palace The day after the triumph in Munich, team captain Marquinhos could not hold back the tears. It may be the first time a pronounced Marseille supporter, who is the President of the Franriks, caused a PSG icon to cry with movement. At Parc des Princes a few hours later, the festivities reached their climax when 50,000 supporters received the players on the inner plane to fireworks.

So what happens to the Paris team now?

They will, just like Inter, to the club team World Cup in the US, a tournament that begins next weekend and will once again establish which team is Europe’s best. Yes, in a formal sense, of course, there are a bunch of clubs from the rest of the world represented. But if none of the twelve European top teams would probably stand as the final winner in Fifa’s latest experiment, it is exclusively that they are too worn out to do their best.

Before the transatlantic adventure, the men’s national team gathered this week to play the Nations League.

The tug of war between the clubs And the national team in football has long been won by the first. But the criticism of the hard match now comes from both directions.

« Sure, the clubs make a lot of money on this, but it destroys the players, » said the Netherlands Confederation Ronald Koeman this week.

Barcelona coach Hansi Flick is of the same opinion.

-This World Cup playoffs are not a good thing, that’s my view. We should stop and think about the players, because the supporters want players to give one hundred percent. If we continue like this we will not be able to play at a high level.

Paris Saint-Germain goes to The California championship base with 58 played matches this past season.

In May, French L’équipe (the magazine also has a TV channel) a documentary about former elite football bodies that have taken a beating of his career.

– It takes ten minutes for me to get out of bed in the morning, says the old national team and Manchester United goalkeeper Fabien Barthez, 53.

– There is nothing left of my disks, but I’m not alone in this. We are all completely pie, says Barthez.

He belongs to a generation that had worse access to well -developed rehabilitation than today’s. He, on the other hand, belongs to a generation that did not play near as many matches as today’s.

Gianni Infantino, the brain Behind the club team World Cup, plays down the risks:

– It is a championship that is played every four years. The winner plays seven matches – it’s like one and a half match more a year – so it doesn’t make much difference, Fifa’s chairman told CNN recently.

Placing for top -level football players as victims has their obvious risks. No one, or very few, instinctively thinks pity for idolized multi -millionaires who complain about having to do their job in front of applauding spectators.

Probably that is why the supporter experience is instead invoked as an argument: with so many matches in a year, the experience for the spectators finally suffers, since the level of the game inevitably drops.

But the players’ health and injury risk is, of course, a completely legitimate reason in itself for football’s governing bodies to look in the mirror and ask where we are going.

Read more texts by Johanna Frändén