Player fatigue is a hot-button topic across all major professional team sports right now. In the NBA, for instance, there’s a debate going on about how the extra demands for game time are causing an injury epidemic. In soccer, that debate has been going on for several years, with additional international fixtures, Champions League games, and domestic cups all adding to players’ minutes on the pitch. In a World Cup year, you can expect that debate to go a little further.
But might it hurt England’s chances, in particular? The 2026 World Cup is a clear target for the 3 Lions, with many pundits believing the squad is good enough to finally win the tournament for the first time since 1966. This is born out in the odds, too. If you bet with DraftKings sportsbook, for example, you will see that England has been installed as the second-favorite with odds of +550, just a smidgen behind Spain.
Champions League campaign was unprecedented for EPL teams
Yet, those English players will be playing a lot of games this season. Consider the Champions League 2025/26 campaign, for instance. It is wholly unprecedented to see a record six English teams – Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Newcastle, Chelsea, and Tottenham reach the knockout phase in the Round of 16. It is a record for the competition. And, as you might expect, many of those players form the nucleus of the England squad.
When you add in teams like Aston Villa, Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest, which are all in the knockout rounds of the Europa and Conference Leagues, and all supply a couple of key players, it’s evident that the English squad will likely boast the most cumulative games going into the World Cup in the summer. Some players may clock 60+ games before the season ends, and that does not include the number of international games they have appeared in.
Will it matter? You might, of course, argue that the Premier League is stuffed full of international players, so someone like Erling Haaland (Man City and Norway) or Hugo Ekitike (Liverpool and France) might be just as knackered as any English player, yet it remains the case that the majority of English players play in the Premier League. Moreover, the exceptions – like Harry Kane (Bayern Munich) and Jude Bellingham (Real Madrid) – are likely to play for successful teams, including teams that have gone deep in the Champions League, so their game time is going to be high, too.
The EPL has a greater physicality than other top European leagues
There is also the argument that the Premier League is more physically demanding than comparable big leagues across Europe. You may argue that other leagues are better than the Premier League, but several studies have been done that show that EPL players cover more distance per game on average than other leagues. In addition, Premier League players are more likely to perform sprints. One ESPN metric conducted last year showed six of the top seven teams in Europe for sprint distance per 90 minutes were Premier League teams.
Of course, there is nothing to say that England’s World Cup hopes won’t be scuppered by other factors. Ask any long-suffering English fan about what has hurt them before, and they will tell you that everything from tactics to players playing out of position to a lack of technical ability has hurt them before. Yet, it would be a shame to see the most talented squad that England has boasted in generations flunk out of the World Cup because the players have been pushed to the limit in the domestic club season. Something to consider before you place your World Cup bets.
