Ready or not, the new football season will be the longest and most physically demanding ever.
Haaland, Kylian Mbappé, Jude Bellingham -- the game's biggest stars -- could each play over 70 games between now and the official end of the season, the FIFA Club World Cup final on July 13, 2025. Real Madrid's Mbappe and Bellingham are yet to start their season -- they're on a delayed summer break because of their participation in Euro 2024 with France and England, respectively -- but Haaland's season is already underway, with the 24-year-old having played his first game in City's friendly against Celtic in the United States on July 24.
And spare a thought for Haaland's former City teammate, Julián Álvarez, as he prepares for life at Atletico Madrid. The Argentina forward played five games during his country's Copa America triumph this summer, and then headed to France to represent the Albiceleste at the Paris Olympics. When he eventually enjoys a break -- if he does -- Alvarez might wonder when one season ended and the other began, and he won't be alone. Football feels like it is beginning to eat itself with a pileup of games and added competitions, and the alarm bells are being sounded by players and coaches.
"I think we all saw in the Euros in general how tired people were," Haaland said during City's preseason tour of the U.S. this summer. "You could see the level, you could see even in people's faces how tired they were of football, if you can say it that way.
"That's how it will be as well this season, not in the start, though maybe for some because some will not get a lot of vacation. But that's the way we're going now. It's difficult to be sharp if you play over 70 games a year."
How has it come to this? How has football turned into a sport that is demanding more of its players, and supporters, than ever before? It is a sport of more games, more competition -- and significantly less rest.
The FIFA Club World Cup, a 32-team tournament scheduled to run from June 15 (16 days after the Champions League final) to July 13 in the U.S. next year, is taking the club season into uncharted territory, occupying a space on the calendar usually reserved for international tournaments. In attempting to justify the new competition, FIFA sources told ESPN it is simply taking a slot once used for the Confederations Cup, a quadrennial eight-team international tournament, staged by the men's World Cup host nation as a test event 12 months ahead of the main competition.
While the Club World Cup will add to the workload of the leading players at teams such as Man City, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich, this season's debut of an expanded Champions League will also inflate the fixture list with eight group games rather than six. If City reach the final of every competition they enter -- something Liverpool did during the 2021-22 season -- manager Pep Guardiola's team face a 75-game season, which started with the Community Shield against Manchester United on Aug. 10. That figure does not include preseason friendlies -- which involved extensive travel and multiple time zone challenges in the U.S. -- or the additional burden faced by international players who competed in tournaments this summer, before turning to World Cup qualifying over the next 12-18 months.
It is getting to a tipping point," Premier League chief executive Richard Masters told the European Leagues General Assembly in March. "The feedback we have from players is that there is too much football being played and there is constant expansion. If you pour more liquid into a cup that is already full, it will overflow. That is what is happening at the moment, not just in terms of the calendar, but in terms of the players' ability to be able to perform at their best.
"It stands to reason if you overload the calendar and the players, at some point, something has to give."
Last month, the European Leagues organization -- a group of 26 professional leagues including the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga and Serie A -- announced it was filing a complaint against FIFA to the European Commission with players' union FIFPRO Europe on competition law grounds amid concerns over the expanding football fixture list.
"Regretfully, FIFA has consistently refused to include national leagues and player unions in its decision-making process," FIFPRO Europe and the European Leagues said in a statement. "FIFA decisions over the last years have repeatedly favoured its own competitions and commercial interests, neglected its responsibilities as a governing body, and harmed the economic interests of national leagues and the welfare of players."
In response, FIFA accused the European Leagues of self-interest, saying, "Some leagues in Europe -- themselves competition organisers and regulators -- are acting with commercial self-interest, hypocrisy, and without consideration to everyone else in the world. Those leagues apparently prefer a calendar filled with friendlies and summer tours, often involving extensive global travel."
While the game's power brokers battle for control of the fixture calendar, the players must lace up their boots, take a deep breath and prepare for a season that will test their physical and psychological reserves like never before.
"This season is the season that will really put on the table all those issues," Maheta Molango, the CEO of the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA), told ESPN. "Because up until now, all of this could sound like something very distant.
"Everyone across football knows that the fixture calendar is broken to the point that it has now become unworkable
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