If this year’s U Sports men’s soccer national championship taught us anything, it is that playing three games in four days exhausts players. It leads to muscle cramps and injuries and forces the best players to rest during the most important games of their season.
It is for this reason that U Sports should restructure the tournament to take place over six days, rather than four days.
At this year’s tournament hosted at Carleton, quarterfinal games took place on Thursday. Teams that lost the quarterfinal played in the consolation semifinals on Friday, then in the consolation final on Saturday. That’s three games in three days.
The teams that won the quarterfinal were luckier. They played in the semifinals on Saturday, followed by the bronze and gold medal games on Sunday. That’s three games in four days.
Through the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) season, teams never played more than two games on a weekend and those games were separated by an off-day. To ask teams to play the most important soccer they’ve played all season while enduring a physical workload they aren’t accustomed to is unreasonable.
Then there’s the added complication of extra time. At this year’s tournament, seven of 11 games went into extra time.
Take the Carleton Ravens. While they enjoyed one of the most successful nationals runs in program history, making it to the gold medal game for the first time since 2002, they were beaten and bruised along the way.
In the quarterfinal, the Ravens went into extra time against the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds. In the semifinal, they went into extra time against the Cape Breton Capers. And in the final against the University of Montreal, they went all the way to penalty kicks.
That’s 360 minutes of play in four days. This length of play forced some teams’ best players to sit out of major games. If U Sports is serious about growing university sports in Canada, not putting the best product on the biggest stage is unacceptable.
U Sports should spread soccer nationals over the course of six days, with at least one off-day in-between every game for every team. This is possible by holding two quarterfinals each on Tuesday and Wednesday and one semifinal and one consolation semifinal each on Thursday and Friday. After an off-day on Saturday, teams would play the consolation final, bronze medal and gold medal game on Sunday.
This solution allows teams to fully rest and recover before their next game while also completing nationals in six days as opposed to the usual four. U Sports should adopt this schedule for the health of athletes but also to enhance the quality of the games they play.
Featured graphic from file.
