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Rúben Dias, Frenkie de Jong and Lionel Messi have the highest workload
Lionel Messi has the highest workload of all Copa America players who are featured in FIFPRO’s Player Workload Monitoring platform, which includes 265 players from 43 domestic leagues.
EURO 2020 and the Copa América will kick-off on Friday and Sunday respectively. Especially players in Europe have played an intense season with many games and often too little rest, which raises risk of injury and poses a threat to their level of performance.
Dias played 5,891 minutes in 65 matches already this season for Manchester City and Portugal. De Jong (Barcelona and the Netherlands) played 54 minutes fewer than Dias. On average both had just over four days of rest between two matches.
FIFPRO recommends at least five days of rest and recovery time between two appearances to protect the players’ health, limit injury risk and prevent burnout.
Of the ten EURO 2020 players with the highest workload, only two averaged at least five days of rest between matches: Callum McGregor and Péter Gulacsi. However, the latter only had a seven-day break between this season and previous season: the shortest of all top ten players.
FIFPRO recommends that players have a mandatory five-week period in between seasons that includes three weeks away from football and two weeks of pre-season training. Only three of the ten European players had a three-week break at least.
| Most minutes - Players at EURO 2020 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player (Country/club) | Minutes | Matches | Average rest | Off-season |
| Rúben Dias (Por/Man City) | 5,892 | 65 | 4.4 days | 9 days |
| Frenkie de Jong (Neth/Barcelona) | 5,837 | 65 | 4.3 days | 14 days |
| Callum McGregor (Sco/Celtic) | 5,709 | 66 | 5.0 days | 103 days* |
| Andrew Robertson (Sco/Liverpool) | 5,694 | 63 | 4.6 days | 19 days |
| Gianluigi Donnaruma (Ita/Milan) | 5,654 | 60 | 4.6 days | 24 days |
| Youri Tielemans (Bel/Leicester) | 5,642 | 64 | 4.5 days | 20 days |
| Bruno Fernandes (Por/Man Utd) | 5,555 | 68 | 4.1 days | 13 days |
| Harry Maguire (Eng/Man Utd) | 5,531 | 59 | 4.1 days | 22 days |
| Georginio Wijnaldum (Neth/Liverpool) | 5,258 | 66 | 4.4 days | 19 days |
| Peter Gulácsi (Hun/Leipzig) | 5,163 | 55 | 5.2 days | 7 days |
Copa América
The conditions for the South American players in the sample were slightly better than their European colleagues. However, we have to take into account that several national team matches were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic on the continent. If those matches would have been played, then more players would have had less than five days of rest between matches.
| Most minutes - Players at Copa America | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player (Country/club) | Minutes | Matches | Average rest | Off-season |
| Lionel Messi (Arg/Barcelona) | 5,106 | 55 | 5.0 days | 24 days |
| Roberto Firmino (Bra/Liverpool) | 4,144 | 57 | 5.0 days | 19 days |
| Ederson (Bra/Man City) | 4,815 | 51 | 5.2 days | 35 days |
| Jefferson Lima (Col/Bournemouth) | 4,383 | 55 | 5.2 days | 22 days |
| Tomás Rincón (Ven/Torino) | 3,778 | 46 | 6.3 days | 20 days |
| Miguel Almirón (Par/Newcastle) | 3,376 | 44 | 6.3 days | 25 days |
| Luis Suárez (Uru/Atlético) | 3,523 | 43 | 6.0 days | 21 days |
* The Scottish Premier League season 2019/2020 was cancelled in May 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.