Whether Zhou Yi’s holiday is “hard” or comfortable, his “winter vacation” will not be too long.

On January 3, Dortmund will start their winter break training.

This means that after Zhou Yi celebrates New Year's Day on January 1 at home, he will leave China on the second day, return to Germany, and re-enter the heavy training.

And he returned home only on the 26th of December... So he had not even had a week at home.

However, Zhou Yi should be lucky. If he played in the Premier League, he would not even have a day to go home. He would only have time to go home during summer holidays every year.

Because there is no winter break in the Premier League.

The winter break is not a rare thing in European football. Basically, each league has a winter break with varying time, and only the Premier League is an exception, and there is no winter break at all.

Generally speaking, the European League is now divided into two categories. One is the league that ends all schedules in a natural year like China. For example, Iceland, Sweden and Norway, many Nordic countries are all like this. The other is the New Year's Eve season, where one season is divided into two years of playing.

Nordic countries schedule the league to be completed within one year because they have a long and cold winter for nearly half a year and are not suitable for outdoor sports. Although other countries do not have the perverted cold winter as in Nordic, they will still encounter winter during the New Year's Eve and are affected by the cold winter climate. In order to avoid this impact, or minimize this impact, setting up a winter break is a reasonable choice.

The winter break periods of different countries are different, and even the time of each year is different. They will be fine-tuned according to the schedule and climate conditions. Generally speaking, the warmer countries rely on South and the shorter the winter break period of the league. For example, Spain only has fourteen days of winter break period, and Serie A is also fourteen days. France is closer to the north than Italy and Spain, so their winter break period is three weeks and twenty-one days. What about the Bundesliga? This season, the winter break period of the Bundesliga is as long as thirty-three days, more than a month.

It sounds quite long, doesn't it?

But in fact, it is not the longest. The country with the longest winter break in Europe should be Russia, followed by Ukraine. It is surprising that the national league in such a high-altitude area in Russia is actually a year-round. Their winter break can be nearly 90 days, while Ukraine simply has a winter break of more than 90 days.

In the history of the Bundesliga, the winter break period this season is far from the longest, and it cannot even be said to be long. The longest winter break period of the Bundesliga is 77 days, two and a half months!

Speaking of winter breaks, it is actually a very controversial topic, with some agreeing and some supporting them. In Germany, there are endless debates on the length of winter breaks. Beckenbauer has repeatedly said: "Among the five major European leagues, Germany has the largest population but the fewest teams, and there is such a luxurious winter break. I don't think it's necessary to interrupt the players' status like this."

Beckenbauer has always been a staunch supporter of the winter break, but the football emperor also made a more extreme proposal than shortening the winter break, that is, completely cancel the summer holidays, imitate Nordic countries, and let the German season be held in a natural year, starting from March every year and lasting until December. When this proposal was made, Beckenbauer was also the head coach of the German national team. His proposal naturally considered the interests of the German national team. His reason was: "Major international events are generally in the summer, and this practice will allow players to maintain a high competitive state in international competitions, because that was the middle of the season."

Such suggestions were even approved by many Bundesliga coaches at that time.

Fortunately, the German Football Association did not listen to Beckenbauer. Otherwise, for more and more German teams in Europe, Beckenbauer's original proposal was a troublemaker to create machines. The knockout rounds of European games usually start in mid-to-late February. At that time, the Bundesliga teams may have just started pre-season training. The European teams will tear the pre-season training plan of the Bundesliga team to pieces, making it impossible for the teams participating in the European games to prepare for the new season, which will affect their performance throughout the season.

People who oppose the winter break have their reasons and considerations, and people who support the winter break have their reasons and reasons.

The main reason is to provide enough rest time for the team in the cold.

In fact, there was no winter break in the Bundesliga at the beginning. At that time, football matches would only stop during holidays. Whether in December or January, football matches would be held as usual, almost the same as today's Premier League.

For example, on January 1, 1928, Bayern Munich played a key game with Frankfurt. On January 3, 1954, the two teams played an important match in the Southern State League at Offenbach at that time, which was an important match in West Germany at the time. Their status was no less than that in the current Bundesliga. On January 2, 1966, Bayern Munich played an important cup match with Dortmund.

It was not until the winter of 1969 that things began to change. The next year, that is, the World Cup in Mexico in 1970, began on May 31. So the German Football Association announced the schedule in late June 1969, which only included the first half of the league. "If the national team qualifies for the finals of the Mexican World Cup, the league can only end in early May, otherwise the end date will be May 30." The announcement said so.

Afterwards, West Germany defeated Scotland and qualified for the World Cup finals. The German Football Association announced the second half schedule in early November 1969. The second half started from January 10, 1970, and the German Cup quarter-finals were scheduled in late March, the semi-finals were on April 8, and the finals were on May 12 or 16.

In this way, after the final of the last German Cup, the German national team has half a month to prepare for the World Cup.

Plans are pretty good, but plans are not as good as changes. The purpose of the best plan is to be changed.

That winter, central Europe encountered a particularly cold winter when hungry. On New Year's Eve, the temperature in Berlin dropped to minus 17 degrees Celsius, and six days later, the city was covered with snow as deep as 31 centimeters. At 10 o'clock on that Thursday night on January 8, Walter Barrezel, a staff member in charge of the schedule of the German Football Association, finally decided to cancel the first round of the second half. A week later, he announced that he had cancelled six games.

Barrezel said at the beginning: "The worst thing is that we have to end the season by May 2. For the sake of the World Cup, we can't delay. What should we do now? The real winter has just begun..."

His words later proved to be prescient, because in the days that followed, the intermittent snowfall in Berlin continued until mid-March, with thirty-seven Bundesliga games cancelled in January alone.

The multiple adjustments to the schedule have led to some rather strange arrangements. In the nine days in mid-April, the Red and White Essen had to play four league games at their home court. The reason why the league ended that year was completely disrupted because the German game was completely disrupted. The German Cup final was only held after the 1970-1971 season. The final winner was Offenbach Kickers. Although the team had entered the Bundesliga on August 29, 1970, when the final was held, it was still considered a Class B team.

It sounds quite messy, right?

This fully demonstrates how chaotic football organization was in the past.

After such a chaotic season, many people have realized the importance of a long winter break, but this did not change at the time. The mainstream view at that time was still like this: "...We don't think the Bundesliga needs the longer holidays that the public requires now, because no one can know exactly when the weather conditions in winter will affect the game. Maybe it's November, or between March and April. What we need most is flexible schedules and a certain spare game day to arrange games that are delayed for various reasons."

So the German Football Association did not make any changes at that time. Four years later, because of the local World Cup, the league once again needed to end early. In this way, the first game in the second half was scheduled for January 5, and this time they did not encounter the extreme weather as much as four years ago.

It was not until the 1980s that Bundesliga players truly had a "winter break" instead of the so-called extended Christmas holiday. In the 1982-1983 season, the length of the winter break exceeded forty days for the first time. Two years later, the length of the winter break exceeded fifty days in the 1984-1985 season, and the first time lasted to two months. After that, this time exceeded seventy days.

In Germany, the reason for the winter break period is that the cold and impermanent weather in winter will disrupt the rhythm of the league. In the past, the technical level of the Bundesliga was relatively low. When the weather was too cold, the turf of the court would freeze and the football would be difficult to see clearly. If it was snowing, the climate would be even white.

But now, these are no longer a problem. Since the 2008-2009 season, all Bundesliga and Bundesliga teams have implemented geothermal systems at home, and some C teams have also provided such facilities.

However, as a tradition, the winter break has been completely cancelled and only some adjustments in length may be possible.

No German club thinks that the winter break is not good, especially after the reference target of the Premier League. There is a view that the German national team performs better in international competitions than the English national team, because the Bundesliga has a winter break, which allows more German internationals to get enough rest opportunities and reduce the chance of injury. The English national team is dragged down by the long and dense Premier League schedule. When the season ends and the national team matches come, all internationals are exhausted and it is impossible to show any good performance in important international competitions.

If the winter break today can last as long as 70 days as before, then Zhou Yi can fully celebrate the Spring Festival at home.

But unfortunately, the winter break is basically only more than 30 days.

If there is a World Cup, European Cup or something, it will be shorter.

After returning to Germany, he will go south with his teammates to go to the warm Spanish training camp where he will prepare for the second half of the season.
Chapter completed!