If FIFA and co. want to reduce fixture congestion, they can start by getting rid of one of the most meaningless games out there.
It’s only March, but for Alphonso Davies, the season is already over. The Bayern Munich left-back tore his ACL on international duty with Canada, which will keep him out for the rest of the season — at least. With Bayern and Davies chasing the double — Champions League and the Bundesliga — and about to take place in the newly-expanded Club World Cup, this is a big blow for all parties.
So how did Davies tear his ACL? Playing in a meaningless third-place game in the CONCACAF Nations League.
Much of the blame lies with Canada manager Jesse Marsch. Marsch, born in the US, has a complicated relationship with his home country’s national team, who were not only the hosts but the opponents of the day. Marsch didn’t hide that he wanted a win. So much, in fact, that the Canada manager was sent off after less than an hour.
Alphonso Davies did not feel ready to start, and his agent would later say he thought Davies shouldn’t have played at all, as reported by Philipp Kessler. Despite these concerns, Davies would start anyway. He would play only twelve minutes before leaving with an injury.
But ignore Jesse Marsch. Ignore Alphonso Davies. Ignore that it was an ACL tear. Any injury could have happened to any player on the field, on either team. The question is, why? Why risk a player’s health for a game that nobody really cares about?
Few take to the street after winning the Nations League, CONCACAF or otherwise. So what reason is there to have a third-place game? It only adds games for players to play, and unlike the majority of the other ones, these ones don’t really matter. Nobody takes great joy in finishing third. There’s not a remarkable financial incentive to finish third instead of fourth in most tournaments.
And that’s the Nations League. Let’s look at the biggest tournament of all: the World Cup. Specifically, let’s take a look at the 2022 World Cup, where Lionel Messi and Argentina won amidst record viewership.
There was a third-place game. Do you remember it? Maybe. But it was hardly an all-timer of a game, and not one that will be remembered and replayed for decades to come. And, while Croatia celebrated, with manager Zlatko Dalić comparing their bronze medal to winning gold, it left a bad taste for Morocco. The Atlas Lions took issue with the refereeing, to say the least, and it was a sour note for their remarkable tournament to end on.
Even Dalić’s comments, though, don’t show any real importance to the third-place game. It wasn’t actually winning the third-place game that he compared to winning gold, but being one of the top three teams in the world. Does it really make that much of a difference to finish third or fourth? In all likelihood, Croatia will be remembered as semi-finalists, not the team that finished third.
And then there’s the viewership. The World Cup third-place game, which has been held the day before the final for the last six decades, is supposed to be an appetizer for the World Cup final itself — something to get the fans excited. Except, it doesn’t work like that at all.
There was a pretty clear viewership pattern in Qatar. The further along a game was in the tournament, the more views it received. Pretty basic, right? The most watched game was, of course, the World Cup final, with FIFA claiming a “global live audience” of 570.8 million. The two semi-finals were the second and third-most watched games, and two quarter-final matchups — Morocco vs. Portugal and Croatia vs. Brazil — rounded off the top five.
Croatia vs. Morocco, which was in theory the game to determine the third-best team in the world, was nowhere to be seen. Ironically enough, four of the top five most-watched games of that same tournament had one of those two teams. But when they played each other, few cared, because there was nothing at stake and no reason to watch if you weren’t a supporter of either team. And even for those who were, there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm.
The stadium itself didn’t sell out, either, with roughly 44,000 showing up. That’s less than half the amount of fans that would be in Lusail Stadium to watch the final one day later — and, while the capacities of those stadiums are drastically different, it also shows the organizers knew there would be significantly less interest. It’s an incredible achievement to reach the semi-finals — finishing third just doesn’t really add much, even in the World Cup.
The World Cup isn’t the only tournament with a third-place game. As previously mentioned, the CONCACAF Nations League has one, as does the UEFA version of the same tournament. The Copa América and Africa Cup of Nations both have it.
Some tournaments are making changes, though. The UEFA Nations League might have a third-place game, but the European Championship does not — it was ditched over 40 years ago. The Asian Cup and Gold Cup scrapping them are far more recent developments, each playing their last one of these games in 2015.
FIFPro have made it clear they are serious about limiting fixture congestion, as are other organizations inside the game. Ditching meaningless consolation games like these would be a great start.
It might be harder to do that for the World Cup, because of how long the third-place game has been a part of the tournament, as well as the potential income — although, as seen already, these games are not exactly getting incredible viewership. For Nations League and other tournaments, though, it’s a different story.
Getting rid of these won’t change much on paper — it’s just one fewer game that a player could get injured in — but it would be a big step in the right direction. A step toward slowing the ever-increasing fixture list that takes the meaning out of so many games and risks the health of so many players.
When Ajax had their miracle run in 2019, reaching the Champions League semi-finals, they were celebrated as one of the best teams in Europe. Did anyone wonder why there wasn’t a game between them and Barcelona to determine who the third-best club in Europe was? No, because it wouldn’t have mattered.
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Image is from fcbayern.com.
