International Break: How Clubs Are Adapting to Three Weeks Without Football
The club game has hit the brakes – and this time, it’s a longer stop than usual.
For the first time, the Premier League and Championship have shut down for three weeks instead of the familiar two. On paper, it’s a calendar clean‑up: four international fixtures, previously split across September and October windows, are now crammed into one block. One extended pause instead of two shorter interruptions.
In theory, club football even gains a week back across the season. In practice, three weeks without competitive action is a long stretch for players built to play, not just train. So managers and fitness staff across the leagues have been forced to get creative.
Here’s how they’re handling it.
Brentford: a week off, then back to work
At Brentford, the training ground has thinned out. As with most Premier League sides, the majority of the squad has disappeared on international duty. Around a dozen players remain, including Callum Wilson and Igor Thiago, plus five working their way back from injury.
The Bees also have one of the longest gaps of all. They played Chelsea on the Friday night before the break, so the runway to their next league fixture stretches out even further.
Keith Andrews has responded with something players always appreciate: time off. The first-team group has been handed a week away from the club, armed with individual training programmes. There are no strict bans on leaving the country, but nobody at Brentford is expecting – or approving – long-haul trips.
The reset ends on Saturday, 26 September, when the squad regathers and the real work starts again. On the weekend of 3 October, Brentford plan a behind-closed-doors friendly against another English club. That game is likely to be important for the likes of Nathan Collins and Sepp van den Berg, both eyeing a return to action, and will be fleshed out with under-21 players.
The second international break will be handled very differently. This time the calendar is tight: Brighton on Sunday, 8 November, then Everton at home on Saturday, 21 November. There will be the odd day off, but no extended pause, no extra friendly, just a standard training rhythm and a straight build-up to the Toffees.
Liverpool: ticking over with a thin group
Liverpool’s approach is more straightforward. With so many internationals away, Andoni Iraola will work with a small core at the AXA Training Centre, punctuated by a few rest days.
The challenge for him comes at the other end of the break. By the time his full squad trickles back from national-team duty, he expects “no more than three days probably to prepare” for the visit of Manchester City on 11 October.
Three weeks without a league game, then a sprint to get ready for the champions. The margin for error is tiny.
Aston Villa: Emery’s Sevilla return
Aston Villa’s break has a very different flavour.
Unai Emery is heading back to Sevilla, the club where he carved out his reputation in Europe by winning the Europa League three times in a row. Villa will face Sevilla in the 15th edition of the Antonio Puerta Trophy on Friday, 2 October.
The fixture carries a heavy emotional weight. It honours Antonio Puerta, the Sevilla wing-back who died on 28 August 2007 at the age of 22, after suffering multiple cardiac arrests during a La Liga match against Getafe.
For Villa, it’s valuable match sharpness in a period when Premier League squads are stripped back by call-ups. For Emery, it’s also a return to a place that shaped his career, under the banner of a game that means more than pre-season or a standard friendly ever could.
Blackburn Rovers: a breather and a rebuild
Drop into the Championship and the picture changes. International call-ups still bite, but not with the same ferocity as in the top flight. Many clubs lose only a handful of players. Blackburn Rovers, for instance, have just four away.
For Tony Mowbray, that’s no bad thing.
Rovers have been battling an injury crisis since the season began, with more than 10 players ruled out in the early weeks. The pause offers a rare chance to mend and reset. It allows the club to manage minutes for those just back, like Gady Beyuku and Moussa Baradji, and ease others such as Scott Wharton closer to a full return.
After their trip to Portsmouth on Saturday, Rovers headed back to Lancashire and onto the training pitches for a few days’ solid work. The schedule has been relentless so far, between league fixtures and the Carabao Cup, and Mowbray – back at the club this summer – finally has space to drill his ideas.
But he is not turning it into a boot camp. Players will get a few days off at the end of the week. Some, like Yuri Ribeiro, will be able to head home to Portugal if they choose.
The pattern will repeat in week two: training through the first half of the week, a short break over the weekend. By the third week, the routine shifts again, back into the familiar pre-match build-up ahead of the home game against Cardiff.
Mowbray is also hunting for a behind-closed-doors friendly against a Premier League or League One side. The aim is simple – give returning players game time and keep the rest of the squad sharp.
When the shorter, two-week international window arrives in November, Blackburn’s plan will be tweaked. There could still be brief time off, but any matches are more likely to be in-house, with senior pros and under-21s mixed together.
League One: still playing, but patchy
League One lives in a different world again. The division carries on through the international break unless a club has three call-ups that meet the EFL criteria, at which point a postponement can be requested.
The result is a patchwork fixture list. On each of the two affected weekends, only four of the 12 scheduled league matches remain on.
Clubs saw this coming and moved to fill the gaps. Many arranged Football League Trophy ties during the three-week period, using a competition where rotation is already the norm. Those games can still go ahead even if league fixtures fall away.
Twelve League One teams will play twice in the Trophy over this stretch, with another 10 playing once. That left just Leyton Orient and Reading in danger of being left with no football at all, but both have had only one league match postponed. Neither will face three completely empty weekends.
The calendar has changed, the break has stretched, and the usual rhythm of autumn has been ripped up. Some managers are treating it as a gift, others as a puzzle. When the league resumes, we’ll find out who used their three weeks best.
