With Marcus Rashford limping out of Manchester United’s match against Everton at the weekend, Erik ten Hag shared his discontentment with the English schedule, claiming the teams are playing too many games with little time off.
Far away from Europe, Brazilian club Palmeiras won the Paulista Championship on Sunday. And as their manager Abel Ferreira went to complain about the local calendar during a press conference (via ESPN Brasil), he ended up sending the Red Devils boss a message.
“Football here has fantastic things… But there are others that are inhuman,” said Abel Ferreira.
“Nine games in one month! The Manchester United coach complained the other day that Rashford was injured due to the sequence of games he has… I’d like to ask him or tell him: ‘In these next two months, I’m going to have nine games a month…’ Shut up, because you don’t know what you say.”
Abel Ferreira is certainly right to complain about the Brazilian schedule, as even though the season starts in January, they have the state championship played until April, and that’s when the Brazilian national league starts. Last season, Palmeiras played a total of 74 games.
But he may be unfair to criticise Ten Hag, because even though Manchester United may play less games, that doesn’t make the English schedule easy, especially because the intensity we see in the Premier League can’t even be compared to the football played in Brazil these days.
