- Manchester City are expected to go far on multiple fronts again next campaign
- Players have received their diaries and are bracing for weeks of non-stop action
- Ruben Dias shared City’s schedule on social media alongside a sweating emoji
Manchester City defender Ruben Dias has lifted the lid on the club’s breathless schedule for the upcoming season with fixtures coming thick and fast despite continued warnings that footballers will burn out and strike.
Centre back Dias made 45 appearances for City last campaign, plus a further seven for Portugal, and he is likely to be similarly stretched over the coming months with Pep Guardiola‘s side expected to go far on multiple fronts once again.
FIFA have been told that players could take matters into their own hands in a bid to clamp down on congestion but next season appears certain to drag some to breaking point with their workload almost identical to recent years.
Dias, taking to X, formerly Twitter, gave supporters a rare glimpse at what is to come for City after posting a screenshot of their brutal calendar alongside the caption ‘POV: You play for City’ and a nervous sweating emoji.
Commencing with this weekend’s Community Shield against Manchester United at Wembley, City are poised to go head-first into wall-to-wall action for nine months.
Ruben Dias has lifted the lid on Manchester City’s relentless schedule for next season
Dias shared a screenshot of City’s diary with matches in various competitions colour coded
The schedule has been colour coded with Premier League matchweeks in green, Champions League matchdays in purple and Carabao Cup and FA Cup games also flagged up. International breaks have been marked out, too.
Also included is the expanded Club World Cup to be held next June.
Guardiola has been outspoken on the need for change to workloads and believes the short break between the end of campaigns and pre-season is detrimental.
‘I am against the lack of time to recover from year to year,’ he said.
‘This is what I am complaining (about) all the time. For me it doesn’t matter to play every three days, six days, seven days. It is OK.
‘But it is really tough to finish the season and then in three weeks restart again and go to Asia, to be financially stable, or the States. That is really, really tough, for ourselves and especially for the players. For myself, things should change.’
Pep Guardiola has been outspoken on the need to reduce players’ growing workloads
City’s squad are likely to be stretched once again as they prepare to fight on multiple fronts
Players’ union FIFPRO hinted that strike action would not be out of the question should FIFA fail to address the growing demand in a relentless schedule.
FIFPRO’s Europe president David Terrier said there was an ’emergency’ around mental and physical fatigue and urged for the number of games to be capped.
A FIFPRO player workload and recovery season review made a number of startling revelations. As part of the review, a player survey showed that more than 50 per cent of respondents said they had been forced to play while carrying an injury.
82 per cent of managers said they had fielded a player they knew required a rest.
Last season, several coaches including Jurgen Klopp and Erik ten Hag hit out at their players’ diaries and rued a string of injuries partially attributed to burnout.
