Just over a month after winning the Club World Cup – 35 days precisely – Chelsea starts on Sunday against Crystal Palace at the Stamford Bridge stadium in London, their journey in the 2025/26 season.
Valid for the first round of the English Championship, the duel will put the London team on the field after a small vacation period and a short preseason.
The victorious campaign in the United States has changed board plans. The club has given up an international friendly tour, as it usually does traditionally. In addition to the activities in their own training center, the blue team has only promoted two games, both in London, with victories about Bayer Leverkusen (2-0) and Milan (4-1).
The option to avoid travel was a way to reduce the physical wear of the cast after an extended calendar last season. In 2024/25, the team played 64 matches, a number driven by the world title and also the conference League, European Continental Tournament of the Third Schedule – Low the League Championship and Europe League.
For the purpose of comparison, Liverpool, the current English champion, played 56 games in the same period. Despite their success on the national scene, the team was no more than Champions League’s round of 16, shortening their journey.
Chelsea’s situation is repeated in clubs that represented Spain and France in the renewed world, such as runner-up Paris Saint-Germain and the Real Madrid semifinalist. On Wednesday (13), the PSG played the decision of the UEFA Super Cup just six days after starting its preseason.
Facing Tottenham, the current champions of Champions were dominated for much of the match, especially for the best fitness of the opponent, who had been training for a few weeks and had played six friendly.
Only in the final stretch of the duel the cast led by Luis Enrique reacted: After losing 2-0, he sought the 2-2 draw and won on penalties 4-3.
Before the confrontation, when asked what his team could present at the beginning of the season against the reduced vacation scenario and few training, Luis Enrique was straightforward: “I don’t know.”
Despite the title, doubt persists.
At the end of last month, just as he had already done in the months preceding the Club World Cup, FIFPro – global football players – made harsh criticism of the FIFA (International Football Federation) for the way the entity has organized the calendar of competitions.
In a statement issued after a meeting in Amsterdam, with representatives of 58 unions of players from around the world, FIFPro stated that athletes have been harmed by trade policies imposed by the entity’s “autocratic governance system”.
Also according to the union, “the calendar of overloaded games, the lack of adequate periods of physical and mental recovery, the extreme conditions of play, the absence of significant dialogue and the continuous disrespect for the social rights of players unfortunately became pillars of FIFA’s business model.”
FIFPRO observed at the Club World Cup, played under high temperatures in the United States, “extreme and inadequate conditions for any human being, showing worrying insensitivity to human rights, even when it comes to elite athletes.”
In response, FIFA criticized FIFPRO’s leadership and called for more dialogue in search of solutions. In a statement, the top football entity said it was “extremely disappointed by the increasingly divisive and contradictory tone adopted by FIFPro’s leadership.”
Despite the pressure made by the players’ union, some clubs support the FIFA calendar. According to the newspaper The Guardian of England, Real Madrid is pressuring the entity to hold the Club World Cup every two years.
Although pleased with the tournament’s commercial result, the entity does not consider making the competition biennial. FIFA only ensures that the competition will have another edition, although it does not confirm when and where.
Many of the players who were in the United States last month will return to the country in less than a year in July 2026, to play the World Cup, the first in its extended version to 48 countries. Therefore, even with the interest of clubs like Real Madrid, it would be difficult for the entity to fit a Biennial Club World Cup in the calendar.
Eliminated by PSG in the semifinal of the World Cup, beaten 4-0 on July 9, Real will start his journey in the 2025/26 season on Tuesday (19), in a duel against Osasuna, in the Spanish Championship.
Europe had 12 representatives at the World Cup. Of these, the Germans Bayern and Borussia Dortmund and the Italian Inter Milan and Juventus will still have another week of preparation until the opening of their national alloys.
The Portuguese Porto and Benfica, as well as the Austrian RB Salzburg, have already started their journeys in the new editions of their local competitions.
