Spain to shield players from playing consecutive international tournaments, could help Barcelona injury woes

After Barcelona frustratingly dropped points once more against Granada, another dark cloud has formed over the club, as their injury woes continue to deepen.

After Jules Kounde had to be subbed off in the first half, today it was reported that he will be out for five weeks.

Matters have been made worse, as their teenage prodigy Lamine Yamal has also picked up a hip injury. Even so, the youngster has travelled with the Spain team on international duty, but his participation remains in doubt.

This now means Barcelona have six first team players injured, which is cause for major concern.

In light of this, SPORT have reported that some potentially positive developments have come in from the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) regarding managing the players’ loads in international competitions.

Avoiding a repeat of the Pedri case

After his breakthrough under Ronald Koeman, Pedri was put through the wringer for club and country, and in 2021 he ended up playing a whopping 73 games.

That included an appearance at the EURO and the Olympics, which put an immense amount of strain on his body.

Playing so many games is detrimental to fitness in of itself, but many of Barcelona and Spain’s games also went to extra time during that spell which only made matters worse.

According to this new ruling by the RFEF, it will be impossible for such a situation to repeat in order to preserve their bodies.

Which means, players like Gavi, Lamine Yamal, Alejandro Balde and Fermin Lopez will not be able to compete in both tournaments even if they are eligible.

At 16, Lamine Yamal is still growing into his body and Barcelona have to be cautious themselves too.

He cannot be subjected to overload like Pedri was, as the latter has begun feeling the brunt of the fatigue from last season.