Despite what was a rather fulfilling season for FC Barcelona on multiple fronts, including silverware, the team continues to be the victim of an increasingly demanding footballing schedule and a more congested annual number of fixtures.
Moreover, this is not just an individual opinion but rather a collective agreement. Multiple stars of multiple top European sides have come to criticize the likes of UEFA for their rather exhausting amount of fixtures.
As highlighted most recently by Mundo Deportivo, FC Barcelona and Dutch National Team midfielder Frenkie De Jong was one of the newest to publicly critique this assortment of fixtures and the compression of their match dates which ultimately hurt no one but the players themselves.
Speaking to Dutch outlet De Telegraaf, the 26-year-old lamented that the calendar was becoming more hectic and that the only reason UEFA as an entity was changing the format of the UCL to include more teams, is simply so that “…UEFA can earn more money…”
The player, alongside other European representatives and teams, will be partaking in the UEFA Nations League, and will only get to properly start their vacations following the tournament which is set to kick off within a few days.
Moreover, the Dutchman critiqued the matches for 3rd and 4th place in the said tournament and considers them as unnecessary and matches that “…literally nobody is waiting for this…”.
With the Catalan club already having had a taxing season, with Frenkie De Jong having played a major role within it, it becomes understandable why players begin to get frustrated as they start to feel fatigued and then face the possibility of getting injured due to the overexertion of their bodies.
The Netherlands takes on Croatia in the first semi-final of the 2023 iteration of the UEFA Nations League, with the winner of the match set to take on either Spain or Italy depending on who emerges as the victor of their respective semi-final.
