Chapter 138 Winter Break

Regardless of whether Zhou Yi's vacation is "hard" or comfortable, his "winter vacation" is actually not too long.

On January 3rd, Dortmund will begin their winter break training camp.

This means that after Zhou Yi spends New Year's Day at home on January 1st, he will leave China on the 2nd, return to Germany, and return to heavy training.

And the time he returned home was only December 26th... So all he expected was that he wouldn't even have a week at home.

But Zhou Yi should still be lucky. If he were playing in the Premier League, he wouldn't even have time to go home for a day. He can only have time to go home during the summer vacation every year.

Because there is no winter break in the Premier League.

The winter break is not a rare thing in European football. Basically, every league has a winter break of varying lengths. The only exception is the Premier League, which does not have a winter break at all.

Generally speaking, European leagues are now divided into two categories. One is a league that ends its entire schedule in one calendar year like China does. This is the case in many Nordic countries such as Iceland, Sweden, and Norway. The other type is the New Year's Eve season, where a league season is divided into two years.

The Nordic countries arrange the league to be completed within one year because they have a long and cold winter for almost half a year, which is not suitable for outdoor sports. Although other countries do not have such abnormal cold winters as Northern Europe, they will still encounter winter during the New Year's Eve and will be affected by the cold winter climate. In order to avoid this impact, or minimize this impact, setting a winter break is a reasonable choice.

The winter break time is different in different countries, and even different every year, and will be fine-tuned according to the schedule and climate conditions. Generally speaking, the farther south and warmer the country, the shorter the winter break of leagues. For example, Spain only has a 14-day winter break, and Serie A also has a 14-day winter break. France is further north than Italy and Spain, so their winter break is three weeks and twenty-one days. What about the Bundesliga? The Bundesliga's winter break this season lasts for thirty-three days, more than a month.

It sounds quite long, right?

But it’s not actually the longest. The country with the longest winter break in Europe should be Russia, followed by Ukraine. It's surprising that the national league in a cold region like Russia also spans multiple years. Their winter break lasts close to ninety days, while Ukraine's winter break lasts for more than ninety days.

In the history of the Bundesliga, the winter break this season is far from the longest, and it cannot even be said to be long. The longest Bundesliga winter break is seventy-seven days long, two and a half months!

Speaking of winter break,

In fact, it is a very controversial topic. Some people agree and some support it. In Germany, there is also endless debate over the length of the winter break. Beckenbauer has said many times: "Among the five major European leagues, Germany has the largest population but the fewest teams, yet it still has such a luxurious winter break. I I don’t think it’s necessary to interrupt the players’ state like this.”

Beckenbauer has always been a staunch supporter of shortening the winter break, but the football emperor has also made an even more extreme proposal than shortening the winter break, which is to completely cancel the summer vacation, follow the example of the Nordic countries, and let Germany The season is held within one calendar year, starting in March and lasting until December each year. When this suggestion was made, Beckenbauer was still the head coach of the German national team. His proposal naturally considered the interests of the German national team. His reason was: "Major international events are usually in the summer. This approach will allow the players to maintain a high level of competitiveness in international competitions, because it is right in the middle of the season."

At that time, such a suggestion was even approved by many Bundesliga coaches.

Fortunately, the German Football Association did not listen to Beckenbauer. Otherwise, for more and more German teams in Europe, Beckenbauer's original proposal was simply a troublemaker - the knockout rounds of the European war are usually held in Starting in mid-to-late February, the Bundesliga teams may have just started pre-season training at that time. The European War will tear the Bundesliga teams' pre-season training plans to pieces, making it impossible for the teams participating in the European War to prepare well for the new season. season, thus affecting their performance throughout the season.

Those who oppose the winter break have their reasons and considerations, and those who support the winter break also have their considerations and reasons.

The main reason is to provide the team with enough rest time when it's cold.

In fact, there was no such thing as a winter break in the Bundesliga at the beginning. At that time, football matches would only be suspended during holidays. Whether it was December or January, football matches would continue as usual, similar to the Premier League today.

For example, on January 1, 1928, Bayern Munich played a crucial match against Frankfurt. On January 3, 1954, the two teams played an important match of the Southern State League in Offenbach - it was an important match in West Germany at the time, and its status was no less than that of the Bundesliga today - January 1966 On the second day, Bayern Munich and Dortmund played an important cup match.

It wasn't until the winter of 1969 that things began to change. The following year, the 1970 World Cup in Mexico started very early, on May 31st. Therefore, the German Football Association announced the schedule in late June 1969, which only included the first half of the league. "If the national team qualifies for the Mexico World Cup finals, the league can only end in early May, otherwise the end date will be May 30." This is what the announcement said.

After that, the West German team defeated the Scottish team and qualified for the World Cup finals. Accordingly, the German Football Association announced the second half of the schedule in early November 1969. The second half started on January 10, 1970. The quarter-finals of the German Cup were scheduled for late March, the semi-finals on April 8, and the final on May 12 or 16. .

In this way, after the last German Cup final, the German national team still has half a month to prepare for the World Cup.

Plans are good, but plans are not as good as changes. No matter how good a plan is, the purpose of its existence is to be changed.

That winter, central Europe suffered an extremely cold winter. On New Year's Eve, the temperature in Berlin dropped to minus 17 degrees Celsius, and six days later the city was covered in 31 centimeters of snow. At ten o'clock in the evening on Thursday, January 8, Walter Baraizel, the German Football Association's staff responsible for scheduling, finally decided to cancel the first round of the second half of the season. A week later, he announced the cancellation of six more games.

Baraizel said at the time: "The worst thing is that we have to end this season before May 2nd. For the World Cup, we cannot delay. What should we do now? The real winter has just begun..."

His words later proved to be prescient, because in the following days, Berlin continued to experience intermittent snowfall until mid-March, and thirty-seven Bundesliga games were canceled in January alone.

The multiple changes to the schedule have resulted in some pretty strange arrangements. In nine days in mid-April, Red and White Essen will play four league games at their home stadium. The reason why the league was able to end on time that year was entirely because the German competition was completely disrupted-the German Cup final of the 1969-1970 season was not held until after the start of the 1970-1971 season, and the final winner was Offen. Bach Kickers, although this team had entered the Bundesliga on August 29, 1970, when the final was held, it was still theoretically a second-tier team.

Sounds pretty messy, right?

This speaks volumes about how chaotic football organization used to be.

After experiencing such a chaotic season, many people have realized the importance of a serious long winter break, but this did not bring about changes at the time. The mainstream view at the time was still this: "... We do not believe that the Bundesliga needs the longer holidays that are now being demanded, because no one knows exactly when winter weather conditions will affect the competition. It may be November, or it may be between March and April. We What is most needed is a flexible schedule and a certain amount of free game days to arrange games that are delayed due to various reasons."

Therefore, the German Football Association did not make any changes at that time. Four years later, the league once again needed to end early due to the World Cup being held in the country. In this way, the first game of the second half was scheduled for January 5th. This time they did not encounter the extreme weather like four years ago.

It wasn't until the 1980s that Bundesliga players truly had a "winter break" instead of a so-called extended Christmas vacation. In the 1982-1983 season, the length of the winter break exceeded forty days for the first time. Two years later, in the 1984-1985 season, the length of the winter break exceeded fifty days, extending to two months for the first time. After that, this time once exceeded seventy days.

In Germany, the reason why the winter break occurs is because the cold and unpredictable weather in winter will disrupt the rhythm of the league. In the past, the Bundesliga's technical level was relatively low. When the weather was too cold, the turf of the stadium would freeze. It is also difficult to see the football clearly, and it will be completely white if there is heavy snow.

But now, these are no longer problems. Starting from the 2008-2009 season, the home stadiums of all Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 teams have implemented geothermal systems, and some Serie C teams also have such facilities.

However, the winter break, as a tradition, has been completely canceled and can only be slightly adjusted in length.

No one in the German clubs thinks that the winter break is bad, especially with the Premier League as a reference. There is a view that the German national team performs better than the England national team in international competitions because the Bundesliga has a winter break, which allows more German internationals to get enough rest opportunities and reduce the chance of injury. The England national team is dragged down by the long and intensive schedule of the Premier League. When the season ends and the national team games come, all the international players are exhausted and it is impossible to perform well in important international competitions.

If today's winter break can still be as long as seventy days as before, then Zhou Yi can definitely spend the Spring Festival at home.

But unfortunately, the current winter break basically only lasts for more than thirty days.

If there is a World Cup or European Cup, it will be shorter.

After returning to Germany, he will go south with his teammates to the warm Spain for training and prepare for the second half of the season there.

It feels like starting a new season all over again. (To be continued)). If you like this work, you are welcome to vote at Qidian (). Your support is my biggest motivation. Mobile phone users please go and read. )