For a majority of elite footballers across Europe, the winter break rarely feels quite long enough.
For those in Spain’s Primera Liga, it seemed brutally short this season, contracted from the usual fortnight to barely more than a week, with Match Day 17 slotted into Wednesday and Thursday and now a full set of games this weekend.
The mid-season pause is designed to soothe tired limbs.
Fitness experts recommend it, but a footballer can equally have too much time away from the rhythms of preparation and play.
He can lose momentum. Too much rest can mean rustiness.
For some, the opening of the January transfer window and the end of the winter break is an opportunity.
Around Europe are distinguished players who for reasons beyond injury have been out of action all season.
Contractual disputes, or bans, have left them in a frustrating limbo, restless and battling the self-doubt that underemployment germinates in the mind.
Witness Victor Valdes, a goalkeeper who has won every major title available to him in Spain and in international competition, but not played a competitive match since May 24.
For him, motivation has had to come from within: “What does not kill you will make you stronger,” he jotted down on a handwritten note the other day, posting it on social media.
Valdes has fallen out with Louis van Gaal, the manager of Manchester United, the club he joined having let his contract with Barcelona, where he had spent all of his glittering career thus far, expire in 2014.
Valdes had suffered a cruciate ligament injury in the middle that year, but persuaded United that by this time last year he was recovered enough to at least deputise for their established No 1, David de Gea.
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He would do so only rarely, it turned out, making just two Premier League starts in May before the summer clash with Van Gaal.
Valdes only turns 34 this month, and his task is to convince a club his recuperation from the ligament damage has long been complete.
He must do that on the scant evidence of his few outings in 2015.
He must also show there is no deep rust left by such a long period of inactivity.
For a goalkeeper, much of whose training work is relatively solitary and whose job over the 90 minutes of a match can be more stop-start than an outfielder’s, absence from the ferocity of competitive action may appear less of a handicap.
For a striker, whose livelihood depends a little more on anticipating passes and second-guessing the intentions of colleagues and opponents, “match sharpness” is a precious commodity.
How much of it Emmanuel Adebayor has after half a season without club football, having been marginalised by Tottenham Hotspur, is open to doubts.
The Togo forward’s gifts are so plentiful that offers are being readied to take him on, even if he has a notoriety for the sort of disagreement with management that has made him unwanted at Spurs, and seeking places to train alongside other professionals to maintain his reflexes and fitness.
He could take inspiration from a pair who in 2015 came back from isolation to thrive quickly.
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Hatem ben Arfa, banned from registering with any club last January because he had already represented two — Newcastle United and Hull City, with whom he fell out — in the season spent the next six months keeping fit by playing five-a-side football.
Ditto Lassana Diarra, the former Real Madrid midfielder, who found himself in an intractable contract dispute with Lokomotiv Moscow. In the summer the French clubs, Nice and Olympique Marseille respectively took a gamble on these men’s readiness.
It worked.
Ben Arfa and Diarra have both zoomed back into the France national squad after absences of several years on the basis of their Ligue 1 showings, having been effectively unemployed until July.
The European champions, Barcelona, will be hoping that the lack of action of two of their players will not be noticed too greatly in the coming months.
The reasons Arda Turan and Aleix Vidal had been clicking their heels, denied the opportunity to play so much as a competitive minute for the club they signed for, from Atletico Madrid and Sevilla respectively in July, are distinct from the Valdes or Adebayor situations.
Barcelona, having been found by Fifa to have infringed regulations on the hiring of players under 18, were banned from registering new players throughout 2015.
They can now, at last, unleash Arda and Vidal, who have been training for six months with their new colleagues but obliged to sit out the first 17 games of the Primera Liga campaign and the group phase of the defence of the Uefa Champions League and the Copa del Rey so far.
Barcelona’s hope is that their impatience to join in will express itself in a surge of energy and purpose.
For Arda and Vidal, the shorter winter break is more than welcome.
FIVE MEN LOOKING FOR A JANUARY THAW ON THEIR FROZEN CAREERS
Emmanuel Adebayor
Unwanted at Tottenham Hotspur, the Togo striker, who has had successful spells at Arsenal, Manchester City and Real Madrid, has not played all season. He has high salary expectations and a tricky reputation. But he is an established, hugely talented goalscorer.
Victor Valdes
So low down the Manchester United pecking order he has no locker in the dressing room and has trained away from his colleagues. The goalkeeper, who won three European Cups with Barcelona, last played in May.
Ashley Cole
Once considered the best left-back in the world, the 35-year-old former England international has seen his stock fall since leaving Chelsea for Roma in 2014. The Serie A club cancelled his contract in September, leaving him free to seek a new challenge.
Arda Turan
The Turkish midfielder, whose work rate and enthusiasm are among his many assets, knew he would have to sit out six months when he signed for Barcelona in July, because they were banned from registering new players in 2015. He is now available.
Aleix Vidal
In the same situation as Turan. Vidal, recruited by Barca from Sevilla, should have plenty of opportunities covering the positions from full-back to winger on the right flank. He is hopeful to get to Euro 2016 with Spain.
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