Warning: at the Club World Cup, you’ll see teams stuffed with kids. The tournament will end when pre-season training camps have already started: players are entitled to a 30-day vacation, so…

The final is on July 13. Then the players will have a month off, and when they return to start pre-season preparations, the leagues will be about to kick off: we’ll see teams full of second-stringers

(Translated into english by Grok)

Shall we say it? Let’s say it. The grandiose FIFA-branded Club World Cup, scheduled for next June and July in the USA, will consist—for those who haven’t figured it out yet—of a string of matches in which the top clubs, especially the European ones, will field lineups packed with reserves or youth-team players. What’s that? You’re a bit disappointed? Well, take my word for it: that’s how it’ll be. As they say in these cases: I’ll take bets.

If you’d like to know why I’m making this claim and have a few minutes to spare, start by reading this article of mine that came out yesterday in Il Fatto Quotidiano. You can find it [here]. Then I’ll tell you more.

(“Imagine you’re a player—Italian or foreign, it doesn’t matter—for Inter or Juventus: the two clubs that, from June 14 (the opening match) to July 13 (the final), will be competing in the Club World Cup, the new 32-team tournament devised by FIFA, which will hold its inaugural edition in the USA. Today is Monday, March 24, and you already know that the Serie A season will end on May 25; that if there’s a playoff (which is possible, and Inter might face one), there’d be a seven-day extension for a decider to be played on Saturday, May 31, or Sunday, June 1; and that the Champions League final, which Inter is openly aiming to reach after losing one two seasons ago to Manchester City, is scheduled for May 31 as well. Like most of your teammates, you’re also, naturally, a player for your country’s national team: and you know that if your nation qualifies for the Nations League final four, you’ll be playing a semifinal on June 4 or 5, and potentially the final on Sunday, June 8.

Just thinking about this grueling schedule gives you palpitations; but then you realize that all of this—the end of the league season with the looming possibility of a playoff, the Champions League final, and the Nations League final four—is just an appetizer. Yes, indeed. Because someone reminds you that on June 14, just six days after the Nations League concludes—a competition involving four major national teams, meaning 100 top players, including, inevitably, several Inter and Juventus stars—the FIFA Club World Cup will kick off in the USA. Your club has already flown out: which means you won’t even have time to unpack your bags before repacking, hopping on the first plane, and joining your teammates in the States.

You barely arrive, and voilà—Inzaghi or Tudor (or whoever’s in charge if they’ve already been sacked) sends you onto the pitch for the first group-stage match: if you’re an Inter player, you’ll face Mexico’s Monterrey on Wednesday, June 18 (followed by Urawa and River Plate); if you’re a Juventus player, you’ll take on Saudi Arabia’s Al-Ain on Thursday, June 19 (then Wydad and Manchester City). The qualifying groups, featuring Mexicans, Japanese, Arabs, and Moroccans, are decidedly manageable. This means there’s a 99% chance you’ll advance to the knockout stage: the round of 16 wraps up on June 30, the quarterfinals on July 4, the semifinals on July 8, and the final, as mentioned, is set for Sunday, July 13.

As you mull this over, if you’re an Inter player, you recall that a year ago, on July 13, fresh off vacation, you started pre-season training at Appiano Gentile; if you’re with Juventus, you’ll remember gathering at Continassa even earlier, on July 10. At this point, considering every player’s contractual right to four weeks of vacation—absolutely essential this time after the brutal season just endured—you do some quick math and realize that after your break, you’ll report back for pre-season prep around mid-August, between the 10th and 13th, with the new league season starting shortly after, on Saturday, August 23. Except that you, like everyone else, and as has always been the case, need at least a month to get match-fit, ensuring you’re in shape and not risking injuries from rushed, half-baked preparation. And at that moment, a question will naturally arise within you: Don’t they even kill horses like this?”)

Done reading? Good. So it’s not hard for you to see that if a year ago Juventus began their pre-season camp on July 10 and Inter on July 13, and if this year July 13 is the date of the Club World Cup final—which, in theory, Juventus and Inter could reach (though even if they only made it to the semifinals or quarterfinals, we’d still be talking about July)—something doesn’t add up. A year ago, Inter and Juventus players reported to their July 13 and July 10 camps after enjoying the customary month-long vacation; a vacation that, for Inter, Juventus, and all players involved in the Club World Cup, will inevitably only begin after the conclusion of Infantino’s tournament. This means players will start their pre-season prep a month late: right when the leagues are about to begin.

Question: do you think Juventus and Inter will agree to play the first matches of next season’s Serie A without most of their starters, given they’ll have just resumed training? I doubt it. Naturally, the Italian football establishment, ever attentive to safeguarding clubs with an “extraordinary brand” (to quote Gravina), has already quietly moved to accommodate Juventus and Inter: Serie A, which was supposed to start on August 16, will instead begin on August 23—despite the fact that it needs to wrap up early due to the looming 2026 World Cup for national teams.

As always, we’re the only ones worried about protecting brands. In England, Manchester City’s request to delay the start of the season (they’ll be playing in the Club World Cup alongside Chelsea) was flatly rejected. “Why should we alter our tournament when FIFA has imposed a competition we don’t agree with at all?” said Tony Scholes, Chief Football Officer of the Premier League. “The calendar is stretched to the limit, and it’s gone too far: if there are problems, it’s not our fault—it’s FIFA’s.” By the way: to ensure players in the English league get 83 days of rest during the next season leading up to the 2026 World Cup, the Premier League has decided to schedule five midweek rounds (Serie A will have just one), compressing commitments in those weeks to free up rest periods elsewhere. The calendar will also provide more rest during the usually jam-packed Christmas period, a tradition in the Premier League.

New question: given this, what do you think Manchester City and Chelsea will do? With the Club World Cup ending on July 13, players returning from vacation on August 13, and the league starting on August 16, the idea of Guardiola and Maresca facing the Premier League with Under-18 kids sounds like a joke to me.

The same goes for La Liga. Like the Premier League, it’s decided to ignore brand protection and hasn’t even considered postponing the start of the season to help Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid, who’ll be busy in the USA in June and July. So La Liga, too, will kick off as planned on August 16: and if Real and Atlético’s players have just returned from vacation, that’s Ancelotti’s and Simeone’s problem. As you may know, Ancelotti views the Club World Cup as a nightmare (“The money FIFA gives us for a month-long tournament, we make with two friendlies,” he said some time ago). The notion that he’d have Mbappé, Vinícius, and Bellingham play all seven possible matches in FIFA’s tournament is, to say the least, far-fetched. Not to mention that if Real Madrid, as they often do, win the Champions League, they’d face the UEFA Super Cup final against the Europa League winner on August 13—exactly when all their players will be returning from vacation.

Like Serie A, only the Bundesliga has postponed the start of the German league to August 22 to assist Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund. But the Bundesliga has 18 teams, not 20 like Serie A, meaning four fewer matchdays—they can afford it.

If you add to all this the fact that the money Infantino will distribute to the 32 participating clubs will be less than a third of what was promised—930 million euros, to be exact—to the dismay of the big clubs (Real Madrid chief among them) who were expecting much larger sums, imagine the enthusiasm with which these top clubs will approach a competition that, besides putting players at risk of injury (they’ll arrive after a grueling season), will inevitably have a major impact on the following season, 2025-26. So we’ll see teams loaded with reserves and kids; and starters who, at the slightest niggle, will be sent home to start their vacation ASAP.

In short: if you were eagerly awaiting this moment, get comfortable and prepare to watch not the Club World Cup, but something else entirely. At Inter, you’ll see a batch of Berenbruch, Topalovic, and Cocchi; at Juventus, a boatload of Rouhi, Adzic, and Sekulov—and so on for everyone, from Real Madrid to Manchester City, from Bayern to PSG, and beyond. For those who are content with it, it’ll be a chance to see the world’s best young talents in action: a sort of Under-20 World Cup. Interesting for football lovers. But let’s start calling things by their proper names.

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