Raphaël Varane, hit in the right thigh, had to leave the field and his Manchester United team with tears in his eyes, Saturday October 22. His club has still not communicated on the nature of his injury, nor on his duration of unavailability, but certain specialized media evoke between three and four weeks of stoppage, hence legitimate concerns for the World Cup. The situation of Karim Benzéma, also affected by a muscular problem, seems less worrying even if he skipped the league match this weekend with Real Madrid. Remember that N’Golo Kanté is officially forfeited, that Paul Pogba has just resumed training and that Mike Maignan and Lucas Hernandez are very uncertain. One month before the World Cup in Qatar, the infirmary is still the number one subject for the Blues.
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Even if this does not explain all these injuries, the infernal rhythm of competitions, in a calendar constrained by a World Cup in the middle of the season, has a lot to do with it. “It’s the accumulation, the little recovery time, the sequence of matches”, observes the coach of the Blues, Didier Deschamps, there is not a game where the coach at the club, or me, is going to say to them: ‘No, that one [de match], you can play in peace. You always have to win, so inevitably, that’s a lot.“
Just look at the schedule of meetings of any international player playing in a club involved in the European Cup to take the measure of this pace. If he’s a starter, or has come on every game, he’s reached 18 games in just 11 weeks. It’s a rhythm never seen before.
One game every four days. The pace will be maintained until the World Cup. At each meeting, the players keep in mind that they can get injured, and if it becomes serious, miss the competition. A sword of Damocles on the internationals who could be tempted, by then, to slow down.
The question can for example arise in the locker room of Paris-Saint-Germain. A large part of the workforce will be traveling to Qatar and coach Christophe Galtier wonders: “I’m not in their head, but it’s possible. I hope that there will not come a time when the players will choose their match at the approach of this competition. But we can’t do much about it, the calendar is like that.“The calendar consists of five matches: three in the league and two in the European Cup, which will be played in the next three weeks.
This question of injuries does not only concern the France team. For all the countries qualified for the World Cup, the infirmary remains today a source of concern, particularly for the formations which have players evolving in the European championships. Portugal will have to do without Diogo Jota and without Pedro Neto. No World Cup for the English Reece James, big uncertainties in Spain for Koke, in Argentina for Paulo Dybala or in Germany for Leroy Sané. Each time, it is muscle injuries. “We doctors and the medical profession have been saying for years that players play too muchensures Jean-Pierre Paclet, former doctor for the France team until 2008. That’s even truer this year.”
“At the World Cups that were held in the summer, there was a four-week window that allowed players to recover.”
Jean-Pierre Pacletat franceinfo
This time the internationals will be fully released on November 14, only a week before the start of the competition. “They will stop their respective championships and then immediately we will put them in a country where it will be 25 degrees, continues Jean-Pierre Paclet. They say it’s not a lot but the difference is huge for a player.”