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Ana-Maria Crnogorcevic has had a tough season. Before the World Cup, she would have liked to have had more recovery time.
On June 3, Ana-Maria Crnogorcevic played with Barcelona in the Champions League final against Wolfsburg. The Swiss national team’s record goalscorer started preparing for the World Cup on June 19. There wasn’t much time to recover after an intense season in Spain.
“Two weeks is very little,” says the team support at the World Cup camp in Dunedin, New Zealand, on Monday. The stress is no longer comparable to a few years ago, when there were fewer games on the program and the intensity was also lower.
Legend:
frequent player
Ana-Maria Crnogorcevic (here in national training in Dunedin) is under contract with top club Barcelona.
Keystone/Michael Buholzer
Full calendar = more injuries?
Crnogorcevic, who has around 50 games in her legs, sees an increased risk of injury. “At some point the body just takes the break itself. There were already a lot of injuries at the European Championships last year.”
Starting training on July 10th and playing on July 21st doesn’t go well.
Fifa had defined July 10 as the deadline by which the players could still have joined their national selections. Only: In this case, in extreme cases, they would have had just 10 days to prepare, after all, the World Cup begins on July 20th, one day later for Switzerland. “Starting training on July 10th and playing on July 21st isn’t going well,” laughs Crnogorcevic.
Fifa, together with the club association ECA, finally recommended June 23 for the release of the players by the clubs. Crnogorcevic was with the team 4 days earlier.
No tension yet
Before Friday’s opening game against the Philippines, the 32-year-old is still relaxed. During training on Monday, when numerous invited school children provided some variety, the atmosphere was relaxed. “The tingling really comes on Thursday during the final training session in the stadium,” says Crnogorcevic.