Klopp: 'English week' woes

In the Bundesliga, mid-week games are considered so much an export of the Premier League they're known as "English weeks" in Germany.

With matches on the weekend before and after the mid-week ties, coaches like Jürgen Klopp would probably just as soon send the English weeks back over the Channel where they came from.

For his side – and every other – the grueling test means three games in the span of a week.

It's a challenge for any squad to overcome, but Klopp's Dortmund team – facing Stuttgart on Wednesday in the second set of matchday five games – has the added challenge of also playing mid-week games in the Champions League as well. That means his players will have played seven matches in the three-week period from September 13 to October 4.

Klopp was critical of the intense schedule facing teams that are good enough to compete in three competitions at the same time. Between league, cup, and Champions League duties, Klopp said soon it will be necessary to have a squad of 30 or 35 players just to make it through the season.

Of course, Dortmund aren't alone with this problem: Bayern Munich, Bayer Leverkusen, Borussia Mönchengladbach, and Wolfsburg are also playing in all three competitions.

'Pep agrees'

With the exception of Bayern Munich, however, the other teams weren't as impacted by the German players who took part in the World Cup - involved all the way until the final against Argentina in early July.

"The World Cup cost all the players a lot of strength," Klopp said at Tuesday's press conference ahead of the match with Stuttgart. "That doesn't just mean they simply have a shorter vacation. And [Bayern coach] Pep Guardiola sees it the same way."

While Guardiola himself made no comment on the subject during the difficult week, Bayern's sporting director Matthias Sammer said on Tuesday that it was the lack of rest that bothered him more than the amount of games.

"The biggest problem for me, in addition to all the games, is to only get two days off," he said in an interview with Germany's Sky broadcaster. "If they play Wednesday night, they only have Thursday and Friday before they play again on Saturday. That's not enough, they need at least three days off in between."

Competing for league, cup and European titles is a luxury problem for the best clubs in Europe, and in fact some leagues have it worse than the Bundesliga. England's Premier League, with 20 teams to the Bundesliga's 18, has more league matches to fit into a single season plus two simultaneous cup competitions. English teams that make it into the later stages of European and cup competitions have been known to play in excess of 60 matches in a single season.

Long careers threatened?

Klopp can be thankful Bundesliga sides don't have it that bad, but the demands on players is growing continually, something he blames on the officials in charge of organizing the schedule, which includes competitions for players' national teams.

Referring to the 2016 European Championship, which is to have 24 participating teams instead of 16, he said the increase was because "some people enjoy having so many teams, but it doesn't make a lot of sense for the players."

"Former players in high-ranking positions forget the toll it takes," Klopp said. "In ten years, there won't be any more players who are able to end their careers at 35."

Klopp's comments must be taken in context, however: his team has looked run-down at times, and while they excelled in beating Arsenal 2-0 in the Champions League last week, they lost to Mainz by the same scoreline in the Bundesliga days later. After four league games, Dortmund only have six points, and Klopp already has a host of players on the bench with injury.

Dortmund are in the middle of a long-haul in the season, but it would be easy to imagine Klopp changing his tune if Dortmund were able to start winning – perhaps starting on Wednesday in the English week against the worst team in the Bundesliga, Stuttgart.