Killing the golden goose

This has to be the craziest run-up to the World Cup I have ever seen.
Believe it or not, but national teams going to the most important sporting event of the decade are playing warm-up games one week before the tournament begins. I have to question the wisdom of that.
Consider the fallout… Arjen Robben is in doubt as I write this. Didier Drogba is almost surely out. Japan’s defender Yasuyuki Konno seems certain to miss out after injuring his right knee in a warm-up defeat to Ivory Coast.
Slovakia's defender Martin Skrtel suffered a serious-looking ankle injury against Costa Rica.
Rio Ferdinand, England’s captain, managed to tear a ligament during training. (Michael Essien of Ghana will also not make it, but that is due to a long-standing injury.) Have all the team managers gone mad? Have they not had four years to train and get their players ready? Do they have to be putting them through such a hectic schedule one week before the World Cup, risking injuries to key players?
The answer is no. The managers are not mad (I hope). They are just victims of a football schedule that is so heavily in favour of club football that players do not have enough of time to spare for national duty.
Therefore, coaches do not have enough of time to see their teams play together enough.
Therefore, to get them to gel and gain some fluency and rhythm, they seem to have no choice but to risk their best players getting injured in warm-up games that are perilously close to the actual event.
World football is primarily now in the hands of Michel Platini, due to his role as Uefa President. I don’t know if a better ambassador or caretaker for the game exists, but Monsieur Platini is well aware of the amount of money that is in the game, and the dangers of killing the golden goose as it were.
He moved the European Champions League club final to a Saturday this year to encourage more families to attend. He has also backed a move to put a cap on club wages and transfer spending.
Surely, he needs now to look at Europe’s club schedule, especially in a World Cup year.
Nobody, can guarantee that you will not slip in the bathroom and dislocate your hip the day before you are to start in a World Cup match. But to play a warm-up match one week before the tournament… that is asking for it.

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