André Villas-Boas doesn’t like to play so many games in prime time. After the 0-0 draw in Dijon With freezing cold, on Saturday during the multiplex on matchday 19 of Ligue 1, the OM coach took advantage of the press conference to deplore the schedule of the French championship matches.
“I mean it sincerely and I have already told Jacques-Henri [Eyraud] to speak to the League about it. I think there has to be a limit to the number of games each team plays at 9pm, ”he said.
“It is too late. We are athletes paid for that, but OM we are still in prime time. It is abusive to always be at 9 at night,” he stressed. Taking for example Italy, England, Germany, Portugal and Spain to support his point that also aims to defend the recovery conditions of his players. “We don’t need to play so late, at 9 at night, and bring the teams home at 2 or 3 in the morning. So yes, for me you have to put a game limit at 9 at night for each team”.
Since the start of the season, OM has played 13 of its 17 Ligue 1 matches at 9 pm A schedule that it has also known in the Champions League, throughout the group stage.
Tuchel had also complained
Before him, another foreign coach had deplored Ligue 1’s programming habits: Thomas Tuchel. A year ago, the now former Paris Saint-Germain coach had also pointed out the consequences of these schedules on the players: “It changes many things because it is very difficult to recover. It is always an extra effort to play outside and, at 9:00 p.m. That means that our return is very late. We are going to sleep very badly and it is difficult to adapt, for me and for the players. Honestly, for me, it is too late.
He returned it the last December: “We are going to kill the players, they always let us play at 9:00 p.m., we lack rhythm to eat, sleep, recover.”
His words also opened a debate on access to games on television. for children who have school on Monday morning: “For me it is possible to train at 9:00 p.m. But in my daughters’ school there are many young people from PSG who cannot watch the games. They are great PSG fans. 10 years, 8 years, 6 years, 11 years … And they can never watch a game because the next day there is school. We always play between 9 and 11 in the morning. The children are big fans.
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