Watching the Denmark Vs England match last night, one of the commentators made a comment about many people thinking that scheduling friendly fixtures like this are a waste of time and an inconvenience to the players clubs that pay their wages.
You could be inclined to agree but herein lies a problem. If we do away with international friendlies during the course of a season, when do we get to bring together a group of players and get them out there playing together as a team? You can work on the training ground all you like, but it is only under match conditions that the players become familiar with one another and form the team spirit necessary to get the team through the real matches when the time comes.
In the last World Cup many bemoaned the poor performance of the English players. How do you improve on that? Practice. How do you practice? By playing matches. Even the clubs that do much of the moaning about their players being called up to play these friendlies spend much of their pre-season going on tour around the world playing friendly fixtures to integrate new players, build match fitness and also promote their brand in far flung reaches of the planet. It seems somewhat hypocritical of these clubs to moan about their players being asked to do the same for their respective countries.
If the clubs don't want these fixtures to occur during the season, then when do they want them played? The summer during the close season? Not practical as most of the players are away on holiday and clubs pre-season tours start earlier and earlier each year. Aside from that there are no real dates that don't incur on the season.
The bottom line is that these 'meaningless' friendlies are necessary and like it or not the clubs have to accept this. They may pay the players wages, but international football is important to players and clubs do benefit from having international players playing on the big tournament stages.
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