Why a Lengthy Winter Break Will Hand Bayern Munich an Edge in Champions League

With the Champions League round-of-16 contestants having been settled earlier this month, there remain several big contenders for Europe's most-coveted club football trophy.

Barcelona, Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester City, Bayern Munich. But one of them has a distinct advantage based on the structure of the competitions in which they compete: Bayern.

The edge the Bavarians have is that they are the only main contenders able to enjoy a long winter break to recharge ahead of the potentially grueling second half of the season.

While Barcelona are toiling away to make up for Spanish domestic league games missed during the Club World Cup, a trip that took them to the opposite side of the world in Japan, Bayern players will be resting, recharging, preparing for the most critical phase of the season.

By the time Bayern play their next competitive match on January 22, more than a full month (34 days) will have passed since their previous match, a 1-0 win over Hannover.

The winter break came at the right time for Bayern, who limped through their final games of the fall season with a squad severely depleted by injuries. Although they won almost every game, Pep Guardiola's men had to manage with the absence of several key players and their performance overall dropped.

They were held to a scoreless draw by Frankfurt, they lost 3-1 to Borussia Monchengladbach. And instead of winning by four goals or more as they had against Borussia Dortmund, Wolfsburg, Stuttgart, Cologne, Arsenal, Dinamo Zagreb, Olympiakos and Hamburg, the margins of victory became more narrow: A couple 1-0 wins against Hannover and Darmstadt rounded off the month of December. Not bad, though, considering the circumstances.

"

Ribery,Robben,Costa,Gotze,Alaba and Lahm are out for Bayern due to injuries. Imagine If they didn't have a winter break.

— RIT (@Kahaanify) December 19, 2015"

So dire was Bayern's fitness situation in the weeks preceding the winter break that Guardiola declined to select a full, 18-man squad for Bayern's final four Bundesliga games of the fall term; he didn't have as many fit senior players and chose to limit call-ups from the reserves and youth teams.

The ongoing break is just what players like David Alaba, Arjen Robben, Mehdi Benatia and Douglas Costa need; a few more weeks to recover from their current ailments and build fitness for the second round.

Often in football, a club will rush a player back into the first team as quickly as possible, and sometimes they aren't truly ready. In such cases, these players won't have any competitive games to play before they've presumably had time to build their strength and endurance beyond a level of simply passable, and the likelihood of an injury recurring in the same area is high.

A 2009 UEFA study found that 12 percent of injuries were re-injuries and that such ailments resulted in 33 percent more time on the sideline on average (24 vs. 18 days).

Recovery is important, but the midseason pause is also hugely beneficial to Bayern from a preventative stance. Many injuries that professional footballers suffer from are essentially related to overuse, with the previously cited UEFA study finding that risk of injury increases with time in each half of a football game.

Muscular tears are direct examples, and those of the thigh (hamstring and quadriceps) accounted for 17 percent of recorded injuries over the seven-year study. But also ankle and knee ailments can be related either to a strain of the nearby muscle. And finally, a weary mind that has been overloaded with in-game stress can put a foot wrong or be a little slow to react and ride a challenge, causing injury.

"

Franck Ribery is out for another two months and #BayernMunich’s medical staff blame Pep Guardiola (via #Bild) pic.twitter.com/CtR2bLAXDX

— SoccerNews.com (@SoccerNewsFeed) December 17, 2015"

Moreover, such injuries are exacerbated by cold weather, and not training and playing in a frigid Germany is hugely helpful. Munich in January is colder on average than northern cities like Berlin, Gelsenkirchen and even Hamburg and certainly colder than Barcelona and Turin.

As such, Bayern need the time off more than even their domestic opponents and especially their southern European competition in the Champions League.

Even though the winter break is a big advantage for Bayern, it isn't a guarantee that their fitness will be any better than that of their rivals. They've always had a winter break to help with recovery, but in the last two seasons, they've peaked too early and seen their form fizzle out before the most important games in the spring.

In March and April 2014, Bayern went through a stretch in which they won just seven out of 14 games in all competitions, losing four. In April and May of this year, they were held to two draws in the DFB-Pokal quarter-finals and semifinals before being eliminated in penalties and were knocked out of the Champions League by Barcelona in the midst of a three-game Bundesliga losing streak.

Guardiola was known for pacing his Barcelona team and preparing it to peak at the business end of the campaign. In spite of the extra winter break, however, he has been unable to do the same thus far as a Bayern coach. That might not change unless he adapts his training practices.

According to the Guardian columnist Raphael Honigstein, a few among the Bavarians' staff have internally voiced concerns over the trainer's disregard for orthodox training practices to build fitness, with Guardiola preferring to focus solely on training with the ball.

To these trainers, it must be no surprise that Bayern have been decimated by injuries, particularly last season, and the coach should take some responsibility for not doing all he could to avoid them.

Guardiola is a different coach this season, though, and has adapted his tactics to make the team more pragmatic and effective. His willingness to adapt in this regard suggests he may also have a new outlook on fitness and preparation.

As does the club's schedule: The official Bayern website shows that only one friendly has been planned for the winter break. By comparison, last winter, Bayern played friendlies in Qatar and Saudi Arabia during their midseason training camp before returning to Germany and facing Bochum in a test match. So perhaps a greater emphasis will be placed on regeneration, as well as strength and conditioning, this time around.

At its heart, football is about creating and taking opportunities. In having two fewer teams than most leagues and therefore four fewer games, the Bundesliga can afford to take a midseason break and still end around the same time the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A come to their conclusions.

With all other things equal, this gives German teams an advantage in the Champions League, and Bayern, of course, can and to some extent will benefit.

At the same time, given the potential to reap some benefits, Bayern would be wise to do everything possible to maximize the return. As seen in previous years, despite the winter break, the Bavarians haven't always been at their peak fitness when it mattered most.

If they want to be at their best in the latter stages of the DFB-Pokal and Champions League, they will have to use the break better to regenerate and build fitness. It could make all the difference between a second treble in four years and a second consecutive season with only the Bundesliga to show for their hard work.

@Mr_Bundesliga