MLS: Luchi Gonzalez right, a preseason necessary

MLS will return to play at some point this season. But when they do, the players’ fitness is a major concern and will have to be taken into account. With that in mind, FC Dallas head coach Luchi Gonzalez argues that a two-week preseason is necessary.

With the coronavirus outbreak taking hold across the globe, the entire sporting world is put on hold. There are now very few competitions the world over hosting events and live sport is being cancelled every day, the latest to drop out being Wimbledon in mid-June in Southwest London.

Major League Soccer has suspended play until May 10th. In reality, it could be a lot longer than that, with some models not predicting any sport being able to be paid until as late as August or beyond.

MLS is in a slightly easier position than many other football leagues around the world, especially in Europe in that it has more room to play with. The 2020 season was only two weeks young before the postponement was made. They have until November and potentially even December to complete the season. The Premier League, for example, does not have the same margin for error.

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Nevertheless, even with this added time to pad out the schedule and deal with the extensive COVID-19 ramifications, many of which likely have not even been discovered yet, radical changes will have to be made to the season if it is to be played in any form. The U.S. Open Cup is in major jeopardy, the CONCACAF Champions League will be heavily impacted given that it was halfway through the quarter-final stage, while the Leagues Cup and Campeones Cup will surely be scrapped to make room in the schedule.

But even these changes might not free up enough time to finish the season, especially if the league’s suspension lasts long into the summer. So what happens then? Well, no one really knows, but there is another complication that the league must consider whenever it is safe to recommence play: a preseason.

In fact, FC Dallas head coach Luchi Gonzalez thinks it is essential, as he confirmed on a conference call this week:

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"“Any less than that [two week preseason] would be, I think, risky. But we have to adapt, and it’s our job to make the players as optimally fit in these conditions as possible. They’re not going to be ready for 90 minutes, for sure. No one in the world will be because there’s no opponents and there’s no references of teammates, opponents, time and space of a real game with a real goal under the pressure of competition. You can’t simulate that working by yourself or in a gym. You have to actually get those reps.”"

He is, of course, correct. You cannot expect professional athletes who have been training in isolation to suddenly play 90 minutes of high-level sport as soon as they return to normal life. Even if they are allowed to train within their respective clubs, the lack of competitive matches will mean that very few are ready for the physicality of a real match.

There are two obvious problems with no preseason: the first is that increased risk of injury for the players, which is a major concern. When not fully fit, longstanding injuries are more likely. That would be disastrous. The second is the quality of the matches. Watching unfit players attempt to play at a tempo that they cannot sustain is not especially entertaining.

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Gonzalez, then, is right. When MLS returns to action, the league will have to find a way to squeeze preseason into its schedule. And given the time pressures that they already under, that will be extremely difficult indeed.

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