Soccer is Back – Bundesliga Will be the Test Case

The first major sporting league in the world will reopen this Saturday with the German Bundesliga starting play. The game will be the same, at least mostly, but there will be massive changes to ensure the safety of the players, fans, and officials. This will be an update on what is happening with the major soccer leagues in Europe and the United States but first lets look at what the Bundesliga is doing and how that may impact other leagues. In fact I suspect all professional sports leagues in the United States will be playing close attention to see just how the restart of the Bundesliga goes and how well the protective measures put in place function. So with that in mind lets take an overall look at what is happening starting Saturday and what lessons learned may fall out for other leagues and sports as they all work to get back in play. Lets break this down into two aspects, safety and competition as the safety approach has broad implications across all sports while the competition factors are mostly applicable to soccer.

(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)

Safety Approach

Certainly the overarching concern with all sports has been to develop plans to return to play while providing adequate protection to the players, fans, and officials. But to quote a famous circus ringleader, “the show must go on.”  And hopefully sooner rather than later. But there is no denying that there will be an increase in risk. So lets look at the Bundesliga and see what their approach will be.

1) The league developed a detailed plan that was submitted to the German government for approval prior to moving forward.

2) All first and second division teams (players and staff) were tested for the virus then placed in mandatory isolation for 7 days.

3) Teams have generally moved to hotels near their training sites. Meals and meetings are conducted using social distancing guidelines. Players are in individual rooms and will do simple tasks like make their own beds to minimize the need for hotel staff to enter their rooms. Some teams have chosen training sites and hotels near their match stadiums to minimize travel. Other teams have chosen more remote locations to minimize social contact. Will be interesting to see if one approach turns out better than the other.

4) Like the lead in picture of Borussia Dortmund’s Singal Iduna Park, games will be played with no fans.

5) Players will be tested once a week on the day prior to their match day. For weeks where they have two matches they will be tested twice. Positive test results will require that player to go into quarantine for 14 days.

6) Only 300 people will be allowed in a stadium for a match. 100 each into the interior, the concourse, and around the perimeter.

7) In the event of significant upturn in the number of cases the league will be shutdown. What the league and the rest of the sporting world will be interested is what will be considered a significant upturn and is it in the general public and/or the players.

Competition

The changes for safety considerations and the remaining schedule could have major changes in the way the actual game on the field is played.

1) Due to the shortened timeframe to complete the season, teams will play 9 matches in 7 weeks, it appears that the league may allow up to 5 substitutions per match compared to the previously allowed 3 and rosters can hold 23 players compared to the previous 21.  FIFA’s rule body has already approved that change and the Bundesliga held a conference call on this but hasn’t announced their decision yet. I believe this is important for two reasons. At this level of play that is a lot of high end matches in a short time frame. Fitness and stamina are going to be taxed. Secondly, it will enable teams to give minutes to their younger players. With Champions League and Europa League on indefinite hold it will be hard to get younger players much time given the fewer total matches a team will play.

2) Will the play on the field be as intense or will there be less physical type play? I would hope not and suspect we won’t see much of a difference but the players are still human afterall.

3) Without fans, one has to wonder what becomes of home field advantage? Soccer has typically been a sport where home field has been a big advantage to the point where the play leaned toward the mantra of win at home and take a draw on the road. Without tens of thousands of fans cheering on the home side does this change?

4) Will the traditional prematch lineups still be done? Will the after match handshakes and jersey exchanges still happen?

So with that lets take a look around at the major soccer leagues and what’s happening.

German Bundesliga

Lots of interesting story lines to watch the rest of the way in Germany. One of the interesting things (for all sports to pay attention to) is just how big the TV audience will be. With a total lack of sports for several months the TV market is expected to be huge. Will it generate more excitement than there has been and does that open up the possibility of expanded TV coverage. For example, currently Fox Sports shows Bundesliga matches on Saturday and Sunday. Will that expand to weekday matches?

Currently Bayern Munich is atop the table 4 points clear of second place Borussia Dortmund and is aiming for their 8th straight league title. To put that in perspective the longest winning streak in football is two Super Bowl wins and the longest appearance streak is four. Bayern has been firing on all cylinders and comes of the break having gone 4-1-0 in their last five matches. And super striker Robert Lewandowski is back from injury and expected to start this weekend.

The rest of the way teams will be fighting to earn UEFA Champions League (top 4 finish) and Europa League (5th and 6th place) spots for the 2020-2021 season. As of now Bayern, Dortmund, Leipzig and Monchengladbach are inline for UCL while Leverkusen and Schalke are up for Europa. Leverkusen is within easy striking range of the top 4 while Schalke is only 1 point ahead of the next two sides in the standings. At the bottom of the table Bremen and Paderborn are looking like relegation candidates.

The match to watch this weekend? The Rivierderby between Dortmund  and Schalke which will be shown on Fox Sports 1 Saturday morning at 0920 EDT.

English Premier League

With tentative plans to restart play in June, EPL leaderhsip will be watching closely how things progress in Germany. The clubs are back in limited training albeit while observing social distancing guidelines and play may resume as early as June 1st. Although that date is allowed by the UK’s rules for opening up the country it is doubtful that the EPL will be ready that quickly. There are still 92 matches left to be played. With at least 9 matches left to play for each club and a shrinking window to finish the season every day the ticked off the calendar makes this problematic. The EPL season typically starts early the second week in August. If the EPL doesn’t begin play before mid June then it will be the end of July before the current season ends. Sending teams right into training for next year.

And one of the key issues with starting next season is the summer transfer window. Typically the summer transfer window for European based players has been June 1 to early September. FIFA prefers that the window not open until after the end of the current season and close shortly after the start of the next season. This is likely to have to change this year. Just when and how is a large uncertainty right now but suffice it to say that teams will be scrambling to make whatever moves they feel necessary.

Hopefully the EPL can finish out its full slate of games. Liverpool is on a historic run and could set several EPL records. Will be a shame if they win the league but have an * next to their name.

French Ligue 1

Over and out. There will be no further play this season. Since not all teams played an equal number of matches they used a metric based on number of points per game weighed by head-to-head record. With this approach, PSG was awarded the title their 7th title in the last 8 years and Amiens and Toulouse will be relegated. However, we may not have heard the final word on this just yet. Amiens has threatened to sue over being relegated and not having an opportunity to settle it on the field. Likewise, Lyon is threatening suit over loss of revenue having missed out on qualifying for European competition for next year. And they have a pretty reasonable argument. They cite that Nice (which finished just above them with a “score” of 1.46 played more home matches than Lyon and only played PSG once whereas Lyon played them twice.

Will be interesting to see if these clubs pursue legal action?

Italian Serie A

Individual player training is ongoing and team training has been approved to being next Monday. The league has voted to resume match play on June 13th but that is pending approval from the Italian government. Since the league accepted the governments health protocols it is anticipated that they will get restart approval. The difficulty this league is facing is significant. They have 12 or 13 matches left to play to complete this season. The plan for the 2020-2021 season was to begin play on the 3rd weekend in August. They are facing a tight squeeze to play that many matches between mid June and the end of July with essentially no time off for training camp for next year.

Spanish La Liga

Soccer in Spain will commence on June 12 (or potentially June 19) pending final approval from the Health Ministry. Teams returned to training this week and players are wearing masks and gloves during training sessions. Teams have 11 more matches to complete the season and the plan is to have those completed by the end of July so that August can be reserved for the potential completion of Champions and Europa Leagues. This should be a classic dogfight right to the finish with two of the top clubs in the world looking for the title. Barcelona is currently in first but a mere 2 points ahead of Real Madrid. One of these two sides will win the title barring a major collapse as third place Sevilla sites 9 points behind second.

Major League Soccer

There are a number of suggestions being floated around as means to complete the current MLS season none of which yet have been approved or set in stone. The good news is that a number of teams have gotten approval to open their training facilities to individual player training and the rest of the teams are soon to follow suit. Then full training will be phased in over several weeks. First players will be allowed to train in small groups for a period of time then finally full team training will be opened up. The timing of these two phases has not been set yet.

To commence actual play the league has sent a proposal to the players association for review and approval. The plan would be to hold a tournament style event over 45 days in a neutral site, probably Orlando. Then it gets a bit convoluted. One approach would be to utilize these matches as a stand alone tournament perhaps awarding the winner with a CONCACAF Champions League place. Upon completion of this tournament teams would return to their home stadiums to complete the rest of the MLS season. Another option would be to use this neutral site approach to hold 45 days worth of regular season matches at which time teams would return home to finish the season. Its possible that the current MLS season may not be completed until the end of the year with the actual playoffs held next year. That, of course, has significant weather issues. Want to play a playoff game in Denver in January?

While nothing has been set in stone yet since the players association has gotten the proposal expect things to firm up fairly quickly. In any case once the season, whatever it does look like, opens back up it will be in empty stadiums.

So the good news is soccer is back. Slowly for sure, but there will be games to watch. Highlights to see. And hopefully a start down the road to where we can once again see 80,000 fans in a stadium.