Courtois Questions Relevance Of Nations League Third-Place Playoff Game
Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois has questioned the need for a third-place playoff game in the UEFA Nations League.
Following their semi-final losses to France and Spain respectively, Belgium and Italy fielded much changed sides for the bronze match, with the Azzurris claiming a 2-1 victory over the Red Devils on Sunday.
Courtois has opined that the third-place match is useless as UEFA only cares about making money from organising more games and not about player welfare.
"This game is just a money game and we have to be honest about it," he said in his post-match interview. "We just play it because for UEFA it's extra money.
"Look at how much both teams changed [line-ups]. If both teams would have been in the final, there would have been other players in the final playing.
"This just shows that we play too many games."
"They [UEFA] made an extra trophy [the Europa Conference League]… it is always the same," he added.
"They can be angry about other teams wanting a Super League, but they don't care about the players, they just care about their pockets.
"It's a bad thing that players are not spoken about. And now you hear about a European Championship and a World Cup every year, when will we get a rest? Never."
Courtois added: "In the end top players will get injured and injured and injured. It's something that should be much better and much more taken care of.
"We are not robots! It's just more and more games and less rest for us and nobody cares about us.
"Next year we have a World Cup in November, we have to play until the latter stages of June again. We will get injured! Nobody cares about the players anymore.
"Three weeks of holiday is not enough for players to be able to continue for 12 months at the highest level. If we never say anything it [will be] always the same."
