Why is this international break so long? Explaining how the four-game window came about and what it's for

A revamped calendar pauses club soccer for nearly three weeks Just as the club football season was building some momentum, the brakes slam on. And boy will we be stuck in park for quite a while now. It will, for instance, be 20 days without the Premier League in which international football takes center stage. Now is the time of Nations Leagues (CONCACAF and UEFA) and those are some of the highest-stakes games. Mauricio Pochettino's USMNT play four friendlies in this elongated window while top South American nations will also be using this window to take a look at their squad. It is not all quite so low-stakes, however, as in Africa there is the invariably competitive battle for qualification to the Africa Cup of Nations.

In short, club football might be gone for a week longer than usual but there is still plenty to sink your teeth into before the Champions League and European domestic competitions snatch the spotlight back for themselves. Moving to an extended September break was approved by the FIFA Council in March 2023 to be introduced following the 2026 World Cup. That tournament was part of the spur for the reorienting of the international calendar; the fact that the final was the latest ever played in a summer tournament (July 19) meant that domestic leagues