Germans Get No Nap Time, Want Time Off

By: chris | December 7th, 2007

Theme of the week: everybody wants time off. First it was Rangers, who figured if they were going to ask for the inch, they might as well start with the mile. Desiring an entire week off caused a lot of hullabaloo, with much of the press frowning on their attempts for a proper nap before their Champions League decider against Lyon next week. Milan seemingly changed clocks throughout Europe with the amount of chaos their trip to Japan has been able to cause. First they forced their entire Champions League group to play a week earlier, then had 3 Serie A games rescheduled (one a makeup from Nov. 11th and two scheduled for December) for January 23rd, 30th and February 13th. Now it seems a couple of Bundesliga clubs have gotten into the action and want to do something about the time between games as well. Specifically, the time between European games.

The two clubs at the forefront, Bayern Munich and Hamburger SV, appear to have a very legitimate gripe. Both are participating in the UEFA Cup this season, and both with a decent amount of success - HSV leads their group while Bayern is in second only a point from top with a game in hand (and, oh yeah, they’re sick). Both are also up at the front of the pack in the Bundesliga with Bayern tops on 34 points and the Hamburglers 4 points behind in third. Both also had to play crucial fixtures this weekend, with Bayern on Sunday, and HSV on Saturday - less than 48 hours after playing in the UEFA Cup. Not many people on the HSV side were too happy about that, and understandably so.

On this instance alone, HSV seems to have the biggest issue with the schedule makers throughout Europe. They played Thursday night against Rennes before heading up to Bremen for the weekend. The Werder Bremen match was made all the more important by the fact that at game time, the clubs both had identical records in 2nd place. We all know what that means: one of those games which could decide a title race (Bayern aside). Bremen had a European fixture during the week as well, on Wednesday, 24 hours earlier. HSV, you guessed it, lost the game 2-1.

Huub Stevens, HSV’s lame duck coach, wasn’t exactly ready to send fruit baskets to the schedule makers:

“The body isn’t give enough time in 43 hours to demand a top performance again,” Stevens said. “I think it’s a shame that a game that could decide the Bundesliga title is scheduled like this.”

Pretty decent point, no? Roundabout 48 hours seems a pretty slim cutoff between a European game (UEFA or not) and a top of the table tilt. My favorite part, however, is the Bundesliga president’s zinger towards Munich.

“In December of 2005, Bayern probably didn’t think they would have scheduling problems sometime in the UEFA Cup _ they were probably looking at the Champions League,” said Bundesliga president Reinhard Rauball, referring to the fact Bayern played 10 straight years in Europe’s top club competition.

Ouch.

Both make good points, but here’s my thought: Obviously the clubs signed into this, which is their fault, and the UEFA Cup is going to be locked into certain slots as long as ruling as the Champions League is ruling the roost (forevah), but would it not be in the best interests of all - even the television networks - to have the UEFA Cup teams play on a Sunday?

The point of television is advertising and ratings, a conclusion deduced from the scientific laboratories also known as my couch; the more people watch, the more advertisers like. All leagues obviously run on TV contracts. Fans of specific teams are going to watch their favorite teams regardless. But what about the casual fans? Sure, many will tune in for the bigger matches (say, Bayern v HSV), but wouldn’t they be more apt to watch a game which has a level of greater excitement, something which usually happens when teams are rested and firing on all cylinders? Just flipping by, stopping for a moment and deciding to stay? Surely a team which is more adequately rested will play closer to its optimal levels (most of the time). Even teams like Barca or Arsenal or Roma, whose most ardent detractors will say play some of the most beautiful football on the continent, can be a complete boredom when tired, which leaves the biggest of fans wanting to switch to something more exciting, like CSPAN2 (or whatever the equivalent is in Germany).

Would it not be in the best interest of everybody involved - the teams, the league, the networks, the advertisers, etc - to put the best product out on the field? To draw in the largest numbers possible, and to put the most competitive and exciting product on the field? Obviously it is much more complicated than that, but sometimes things are most easily solved from the most simple of view points. The Bundesliga may keep the schedule status quo, but I’d much rather watch a more ready and ready HSV next time out.

* - This was found from a different source which hadn’t cut off the bottom of the article:

Rauball promised to talk to the television station about the chances of making changes.