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Thibaut Courtois: "We'll get injured and nobody cares about the players"
Photo: Vincent Kalut / imago images / Panoramic International
Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois has sounded the alarm in the face of the jam-packed calendar in football with ever greater burdens for the players.
“We are not robots,” said the 29-year-old following the defeat in the game for third place in the Nations League against Italy (1: 2) at Sky Sports and accused associations such as Fifa and Uefa: “They care not about the players, they just care about the money. "
Courtois rejects more and more games, more and more new competitions and possibly a world championship every two years.
"When should we rest?" Asked the Real Madrid keeper: "We're going to get injured and nobody cares about the players anymore."
The game for third place in the Nations League against Italy was “just a money game, we have to be honest,” said Courtois. “We just play it because it means extra money for Uefa and it's an extra game on TV. «
Courtois had made it to the EM quarter-finals with Belgium at the beginning of July, where the team failed because of the eventual European champions Italy.
After a short summer break, the goalkeeper's competitive season began on August 14, when the new league season began in Spain.
There Courtois is fighting for the title with Real Madrid.
Since then, the goalkeeper has been on the pitch for club and country in 14 games over 90 minutes.
The football calendar was recently even fuller than usual, which is also due to the Covid 19 pandemic. National players in particular who played at the European Championships or the Copa America in the summer hardly received any breaks. In addition, there are new competitions such as the Nations League or the Champions League, which will be reformed from the 2024/2025 season, in which 36 instead of 32 teams will take part in the group phase, and there will be 225 games instead of the previous 125 games. In addition, a third European Cup will be held this season with the Conference League. Uefa is responsible for all three competitions.
The world association Fifa is also planning to increase the number of international matches and would like to host the World Cup every two years instead of every four years as before.
This two-year World Cup has not yet been decided - partly because the associations from Europe and South America have so far opposed it.
mon / sid / Reuters
