By Tom Bason
August 10 2010

28 days. That's it. Just 28 days between last season's closing ceremony in Johannesburg on July 11th and this season's curtain raiser on Sunday at Wembley. Four weeks. And it's even less if you think the Football League season started on Friday night, and then think that Liverpool's season started a week before that with a Europa League qualifier.

For me, that gap isn't long enough. I love football as much (if not even more) than the next person. During the season, I eat, drink and sleep football. There's so much football media fired at you, it's impossible not to whether you're following Wolves home and away, a Sky Sports subscriber, or just a regular Match of the Day viewer. Add to that the daily newspapers, four or five different websites I read every day, FourFourTwo magazine that arrives on my doorstep once a month and the four weekly podcasts I listen to and you start to get the picture.

The World Cup was a festival of football. Maybe not up to the standards of previous tournaments, but as someone with far more football knowledge than I once said, "it's the World Cup. Even when it's shit it's good". So many different nations, and players to watch who I'd never seen before, different styles of play and tactics, I enjoyed every minute of it. But it finished just a month ago, and the new season has already started. I needed a break. I needed time away from football, to catch up on the things I'd been neglecting while the football was on- music, cricket and friends. This was supposed to be my personal time. When people ask if I'm busy this weekend, instead of digging out the fixture list, I can just say "no, what shall we do?" Last week, I started to look forward to the new season, and now here it is. No time to really whet my appetite, to get me longing for the season. Now I just feel like a spoiled brat, as soon as I decided I wanted something, here it is.

And what about the players? As mentioned earlier, Liverpool's season started on July 29th. Yet none of Pepe Reina, Dirk Kuyt, Ryan Babel or Fernando Torres have pulled a Liverpool shirt on yet this season. As things stand, their first game will be on Sunday against Arsenal. How are those players supposed to be fit for the new season? And how is a new manager like Woy Hodgson supposed to have any idea what his best team is when he hasn't yet seen half of his best players play? At least we at Wolves aren't in too bad a position from this side of things, but I'd fully expect Nenad Milijas and Adlene Guedioura to be a couple of weeks behind the rest of the squad in terms of fitness. I know these players are getting vast sums of money to do something that I pay to do every week, but that doesn't make them robots. People argue that players shouldn't get tired from playing football, but the way I'm feeling now, I'm going to have football burn out by Christmas so god knows how the players will feel.

I take a look at the other Leagues around Europe. Neither La Liga in Spain and the Italian Serie A kick off until the last weekend in August, with the German Bundesliga kicking off the week before.  Yes, the Germans have two fewer teams than we do, but the Spanish and Italians play 38 League matches and still fit in time for a winter break. Despite this, I would have no hesitation in advising someone not to bet on Barcelona this season- seven of their first team played in the majority of Spain’s matches this summer. Add to that the fact that the likes of Andres Iniesta were carrying injuries anyway and Barcelona's relatively small squad, and you can see how they might struggle to last the season. Maybe we are fortunate over here that relatively few English based players reached the latter stages of the World Cup. Or maybe few players reached the latter stages because of the amount of football played over here. Very few Premier League players shone, and many missed the tournament altogether through injury. No other country feels the need to have two cup competitions, and while the League Cup appears to have gained some extra life over the past couple of seasons, it may have come at the expense of the FA Cup. Dwindling attendances (a recent study showed that far more fans attend a League match between two sides than a Cup match between them, even taking into account season ticket holders) in the FA Cup show that maybe we can't sustain two cup competitions, not when a third of the top flight are competing in Europe as well.

Maybe Wolves can use this to our advantage, our relatively few World Cup players haven't been vital to the first team over the past six months, and our expected first-11 should have a decent pre-season behind them and be raring to go. While other teams come back with World Cup hangovers, we should able to start the season running, and gain a few points while other teams are still sorting themselves out. Of course, I want to see Wolves do well and I want us to have as much advantage over other teams as possible, but from a selfish point of view, I want another couple of weeks before the season starts again. Football is approaching saturation point, and more and more people are turning off. This can't be good for the game, and something needs to be done.

The New Season? I Can't Wait... Actually, Yes I Can

Discussion started by Wolves , 10/08/2010 15:01

Wolves
10/08/2010 15:01

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toomb
10/08/2010 21:10

Come on everyone, nearly 1000 views and not 1 reply. There's not a great deal of job satisfaction from writing these to no response.

Sometimes I don't know why bother



toomb's twitter

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Stourport Wolf
10/08/2010 23:18

I sort of know where you are coming from Toomb in relation to being a bit jaded by too much football.

The World Cup was very disappointing this year on several levels really. Obviously the ever increasing England overhype followed by dismal and depressing performances didnt help much. On top of that the overall quality was poor by comparison with previous competitions, the premiership and champions league. So not the festival of football that it used to be. Brazil 2014 must surely be better.

I think the reason for the decline of domestic cup competitions is down to high pricing, high season ticket take up plus the cups are devalued anyway with so many teams playing weakened sides. Back in the 70's and 80's football was cheap, terraced and most fans paid on the turnstile. Anybody who wanted to miss a game just had a week off but very few skipped watching football just to save a couple of quid.

In these days of all seater stadiums and expensive match tickets it is essential to have a season ticket (a) to get a decent seat (b) to make it affordable. A cup tie then becomes a rare chance to skip a game and save yourself £40 to boot. With an AST I went to 37 of the 38 league games last season but I skipped the cup ties because I fancied/needed a break. The FA Cup is still a great competition but only a shadow of the prestige it had in say the 70's when a manager would have been lynched if he had played a weakened side.

Anyway onto the big kick off. Take 3 points in style on Saturday and we will go into the Everton game with a chance of being top of the Premiership and everybody will be up for it! Lose to Stoke and it will look like a long hard season ahead. My prediction is a 1-1 draw.

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Risca TM
10/08/2010 23:24

Well Tom you hit a few nails on the head - we've gone beyond saturation point.

Ranting on, e.g. if you accept England's world cup excuse that the players were tired then you wonder why is it ok for them to spend all their energies on earning cash for themselves or their clubs instead of preparing to represent their country on the world stage? What does that say about their or their clubs' attitude or priorities? It's like the world cup is no more than a particularly demanding and potentially embarrassing end-of-season tour that no-one fancies - but everyone has to do it.

No opportunity is turned down to squeeze cash out of the game whether it's at club level or at player level. Sponsorship is more important than belonging, and the players at the top of the game show no humility or sense of perspective regarding what they are getting obscene amounts of money for, who they play for (i.e. the supporters) and what it is they actually do for a living.

"Participate in a pre-season competition to screw more cash out of the punters, or get off my a*se to play for my country in Albania on a wet Wednesday?" No brainer for the pampered juveniles who seem to represent the modern footballer.

Honestly, market forces dominate English football so much that you can say goodbye to it's roots, fans, local culture and the very meaning that got everyone involved in the first place.

E.g. for a club like ours is the height of ambition to survive another year so that the television money keeps rolling in? Can't we at least strive to win every game we play in and aim to reach as high up the table as possible? Bah!

Oh and Tom, keep bothering - effort beyond superficiality is quite rare these days - especially in the world of football.

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Risca TM
10/08/2010 23:26

@Stourport - sorry about overlaps but I was typing away and missed reading your post before me.

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ernesto hunt
11/08/2010 00:15

Tom, perhaps you have covered it so comprehensively that you have left very little room for debate (replys) to take place! For me, I never believe the hype every four years as to how this is our best chance since last time. Our problem is we always employ cheque book managers when we really need motivating managers. For want of thinking too long about it - MON takes an average Prem side and in 5 years without much big spend turns them into a consisitent top 6 side. Perhaps he was the answer?

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jamwolf
13/08/2010 13:07

I think the apathy is more to do with the fact that we are playing Stoke than anything else !

I for one am really looking forward to the new season. Don't care where we finish as long as we don't get relegated, but would like us to play more attacking football than last year.

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