This is repeating every season.
MSN can't play 60 matches per season without a rest.
Messi in 2017:
5th January Cdr vs Bilbao (why?)
8th Jan, La Liga Villareal
11th Jan, Cdr Bilbao (why?)
14th Jan, La Liga Las Palmas
19th Jan, Cdr Sociedad (why?)
22nd Jan, La Liga Eibar
26th Jan, Cdr Sociedad (why?)
29th Jan, La Liga Betis
In the last 25 days, he played 8 matches (Sunday-Wednesday all the time), each time full 90 minutes.
Let's check our schedule in upcoming few weeks:
1st Feb, CDR Atletico away
4th Feb, La Liga Bilbao home
7th Feb, CDR Atletico home
11th Feb, La Liga Alaves away
14th Feb, CL PSG away
19th Feb, La Liga Leganes home
-- one week of rest
26th Feb, La Liga Atletico away
1st Mar, La Liga Gijon home
5th March, La Liga Celta home
8th March, CL PSG home
We will now have 10 matches in a row (2 matches per week) with only 1 week when we won't have matches on Wednesday.
From January 5th till 8th March, Barcelona will play 18 matches.
10 in La liga, 6 in CDR, 2 in Champions league.
Messi is rarely rested, so he will probably play either ALL 18 matches or he will be rested once (Leganes or Gijon at home) and play 17 matches in 2 Months.
In the last 3-4 seasons, Messi was usually tired in spring and people often spotted during matches that he is walking much more and that he runs much less than usual.
So, this year, he is 1 year older again, and Lucho keeps on playing in every fuc*ing match over and over.
Will anyone be surprised if our key player, Messi, will be dead tired and not even close to his 100% in key CL matches in March and April when we'll face tough 1/8 and 1/4 CL opponents.
When another defeat in a CL will happen (like 2 against Atletico), we will wonder what went wrong (injuries, bad luck, bad refs etc).
Messi is not a kid anymore, we need to rest him and save for key matches.
He can't play every single La liga match for 90 minutes and also almost all CDR matches.
Only 2-3 days ago, we laughed at RM for getting knocked out in CDR.
I can't help a feeling that they are laughing their asses now and thinking: ok, Barca will get CDR, we will get La liga, and we'll see what will happen in a CL (but Barca wil be dead tired by then also).