Carpenter also had just 10 days’ break between her last outing for the Matildas in Paris and when she was due to report back to Lyon for pre-season training ahead of the 2024-25 season.
Raso, meanwhile, ranked 11th in the world for players who made the most ‘back-to-back’ appearances, with 29 of her 52 matches for the Matildas and her then-club, Real Madrid, occurring shortly after the last. Only eight others played more matches than her during the 2023-24 season, although since many of her outings for Real Madrid were as a substitute, she logged roughly half as many minutes as those above her.
Carpenter spoke earlier this year of how “jammed” the calendar was becoming and how the implications were “quite dangerous” for players who were being exposed to a higher risk of injury by backing up repeatedly.
“It’s tough. The calendar is tough. It’s getting tougher every year,” Carpenter said after the Matildas played a boring 1-1 draw with China at Adelaide Oval, held five days after she logged 90 minutes in Lyon’s 2-0 defeat to Barcelona in the Women’s UEFA Champions League final, and just before players were given a short break before the Olympics.
“We’ve expressed these problems to FIFPro recently ... a lot of the girls were playing in four competitions this season, a game every three days. We’re just quite tired.
“We travel so much during the season ... it catches up with you eventually. When we come out, we want to play our best football, you want to give 100 per cent - and I know every single one of us, we want to give 100 per cent. Some days that might not be able to physically happen, mentally we can’t do that, but we always try our best.”
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Professional Footballers Australia chief executive Beau Busch said FIFPro’s research showed that urgent solutions were needed, with some players close to breaking point and others playing so little football their development was being stunted.
“Following the Women’s World Cup, we emphasised the critical need for player input in scheduling to address workload demands and inadequate recovery time,” said Busch, who was last week appointed president of FIFPro Asia/Oceania.
“With the women’s football calendar continuing to expand, integrating players’ voices and experiences into the game’s governance model is required to protect their welfare and address the imbalance.
“For our national team players, the tyranny of distance presents unique challenges. The National Teams Collective Bargaining Agreement helps tackle this by providing business-class travel to support recovery and performance.”
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