Counting down ten reasons we hate the international break…
Didn’t we just have an international break? Just as the club season has started to get rolling again, so it has been grounded to a halt by glamour fixtures such as Luxembourg v Ukraine, Switzerland v Lithuania and Montenegro v Sweden.
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Whether or not you believe that the Premier League is the best domestic league in the world, or La Liga, or the Bundesliga, it doesn’t really matter, because the week off will affect us all, leaving us flat on our faces and wanting more action.
For England, games against Slovenia and Scotland don’t particularly get the hearbeat racing, but at least the next stoppage isn’t until March! Here are 10 reasons why we hate the international break:
Injured Players
It’s not just Brendan Rodgers that dreads his players getting the call from Roy Hodgson, the rest of us worry too. Footballers are human beings and are obviously always at risk of picking up injuries, whether they’re just niggles or long-term problems. To see one of your side’s star players sidelined for weeks or months at a time because he’s travelled to play San Marino is simply infuriating.
No Monday Night Football
If you don’t love the weekly war of words between Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher, then you aren’t a proper football fan. The difference in insight between the ex-United full-back and the ex-Liverpool defender is among the most current and valid interpretation of the weekend’s action around at the moment.
Breaking Up Your Club’s Run
Your team is ten games unbeaten, sweeping all others aside with ease, and are seemingly cruising at the top of the league, when all of a sudden, the international fixtures break their momentum. Like the manager of the month curse, this stoppage somehow always seems to have a negative effect.
Bookies
Who doesn’t love to add a bit of spice to the weekend’s fixtures, and chuck a few quid on a 14-way accumulator that they know they have no chance in hell of winning? It’s all part of the football weekend, and offers you a chance to be on the winning side when your team inevitably lose 3-0 to your fiercest rivals.
No Premier League
After a long, hard week at work, sometimes you just want to sit back, relax and watch some football, whether you travel to see your side in person, watch them on the TV, or even just laugh at Jeff Stelling and his loveable band of buffoons on Gillette Soccer Saturday.
Adrian Chiles
Whether it’s his pointless ramblings on in his dreary Brummie tone, or his genuine lack of understanding as to what is going on, I think we can all agree that we all wish he was still on the One Show talking about the country’s best greenhouses. Does anyone like him?
No Fantasy Football
A week without the Premier League means a week without the real-life Football Manager experience that is fantasy football. As the clock ticks closer towards Saturday, avid players have to fight back the natural urge to update their sides, or to cash in the transfers that they’ve been saving up.
Euro 2016 Qualification Too Easy
To sum up how easy it should be for the top teams to qualify for the Euros in France in two years’ time, you only need to look at the fact that the media as good as confirmed England had qualified after their first game – the 2-0 win in Switzerland. What a waste of time.
Friendlies
The Scotland game could well be a good one. But how many other friendly matches are capable of generating such excitement? Germany? Brazil? France, maybe? And even then, the chances are that Roy Hodgson will choose to hand untried players their first tilt in an England shirt. Friendlies are essentially glorified training matches.
Over-Hyped England
England may have just suffered their worst ever performance in a major tournament at this summer’s World Cup, and may have been drawn into the weakest Euros group of all time, but that won’t stop everyone hyping up our chances for the next tournament when we’ve won all 10 of our qualifiers.
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