Was there a more fitting image for Newcastle fans' feelings about international breaks than a headbanded Cheick Tioté, along with Papiss Cissé and Demba Ba, getting shepherded off the pitch by riot police in Dakar? For the third time since mid-August, key players have been forced to fly off to far-flung locales to join up with their national teams. All we can do in the meantime is twiddle our thumbs and hope no one turns up injured. (An unsuccessful endeavor in the case of Fabricio Coloccini and Tim Krul.)
As we have seen with Coloccini and Krul, callups to the national team present a conundrum for supporters. Should we be happy to see players given the chance to represent their countries? Or rejoice when, like Hatem Ben Arfa, they are left to train in relative safety for a couple weeks? And why does the season need to continually come to a screeching halt so often? Newcastle's play this season has been disjointed enough.
Last week's Football Weekly Extra podcast mentioned one possible solution: European leagues should take an extended midseason break, with all international matches scheduled during this one window or during the summer. The rest of the year is for players to be with their clubs. Though all plans have potential drawbacks, this one seems reasonable enough to start with.
The split season already has a precedent in Europe - both Germany and Russia use such a model, as well as many of the Scandanavian countries. If FIFA were to roughly follow the calendar of the Africa Cup of Nations, and schedule an international break in mid-January, many cherished English traditions such as Boxing Day matches could be preserved.
Of course, the specter of injuries will always be present. Newcastle fans should know this better than anyone, after watching Michael Owen essentially end his career as a quality player at the 2006 World Cup. But having one extended international break would avoid the situation the club has faced with Coloccini this season, where he gets injured with Argentina, only to heal up, return to the national team, and come back injured once again.
Perhaps such a break would even allow club managers to more closely monitor the progress of their players, as Alan Pardew has urged. Instead of shipping players off for a week and crossing his fingers, Pardew could actually spend a month-long hiatus in the season traveling to training camps and watching how Newcastle's players are practicing.
The current situation, where national teams poach players the week before the season starts and twice in the two months after, is simply unsustainable. Frankly, it has ruined the start of Newcastle's Premier League and Europa League campaigns as much as anything else. Hopefully other managers will join Pardew in calling for a more reasonable balance between clubs and national teams in seasons to come.