Premiership Season Begins, World Cup Looms

Soccer returned to England this last week-end; the Scots are already three games into their season; and Brazil reaches the halfway mark in their season right about now. The beautiful game never really goes away, thanks to the teams in the southern hemisphere playing while those above the equator are on vacation. This year, though, there won’t be much of a rest at all for anybody. The World Cup in Germany next year will see to that, and it will affect a great many league decisions in a great many countries.

A quick look at the schedule for the World Cup says everything. The first games are set for June 9 in Munich and at Gelsenkirschen. The final comes on July 9 in Berlin. The English Premiership season ends Sunday May 7 and the FA Cup final is set for Saturday May 13. Brazil’s season traditionally starts in April, and the Brazilian soccer authorities are doing triple back-flips to keep their league games afloat while their national side is in Germany for a month.

And for the players themselves, there is the question of whether it’s worth going all out in the regular season to win that or to keep a bit of a reserve for the World Cup. For many players, there will be only one World Cup tournament. Does one risk injury playing for a team that will finish 11th out of 20 in the league to put a World Cup appearance at risk?

These concerns are not unique to the World Cup tournament. With four major trophies to got after (Premiership, FA Cup, League Cup and Champions’ League), English soccer teams regularly face this sort of problem. The coaching is different in a match for the FA Cup where it’s win or go home than if one is trying for a point away in a Premiership match.

Basketball has already seen something like this with NBA stars essentially ignoring the Olympics for fear of a career-ending injury over a gold medal that means very little to them. And baseball’s big challenge in establishing its world cup (to be played this spring finally) was in finding time to do it, but similar issues will arise as well. For soccer, though, the problem is that the players and coaches take the World Cup very seriously – no player has ever turned down a chance to play for his nation in recent memory. It will make for a messy end to the season to be sure.

And by the way, what the hell is Chelsea doing beating Wigan 1-0 in injury time? Man U or Gunners would have eaten Coach Mourinho’s side for breakfast yesterday.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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