Part one of Between Club and Country, a FootballGravity series on how the international calendar is experienced from different points on the map.
For a Europe-based Japan international, September and October 2025 contained two distinct journeys. In September, Japan played Mexico in Oakland and the United States in Columbus. After the players returned to their clubs, the October window brought matches against Paraguay in Osaka and Brazil in Tokyo. Each international window began at the player’s club city and ended there again.
The equivalent period in 2026 has a different shape. FIFA’s men’s calendar replaces the two nine-day, two-match windows with one 16-day window in which a national team may play up to four matches. Japan’s published programme runs from Miyagi to Hiroshima, Yokohama and Tokyo. For a player based in Europe, that means one long club-to-country cycle instead of two.
How much does that alter the journey? FootballGravity modelled ten leading internationals, holding each player’s 2026 club city constant across both calendars. Every route became shorter. The reduction ranged from 16.6% to 46.3%. The common change was simpler still: four switches between club and national-team environments became two.
Ten players, one calendar change, ten different results
The comparison is deliberately standardised. It begins in the player’s 2026 club home city, joins the host cities in fixture order and returns to the same club city. The 2025 side of the model does not use the club the player represented at the time. That removes transfers from the comparison: Son Heung-min is anchored to Los Angeles in both years, for example, and Ayase Ueda to Lille.
| Player | National team | Fixed club city | 2025 model | 2026 model | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daichi Kamada | Japan | London | 37,600 km | 20,500 km | −17,200 km (−45.6%) |
| Ayase Ueda | Japan | Lille | 38,000 km | 20,400 km | −17,600 km (−46.3%) |
| Takefusa Kubo | Japan | San Sebastián | 40,100 km | 22,200 km | −18,000 km (−44.7%) |
| Vinícius Júnior | Brazil | Madrid | 41,900 km | 34,900 km | −7,000 km (−16.6%) |
| Julián Álvarez | Argentina | Madrid | 37,500 km | 20,800 km | −16,700 km (−44.5%) |
| Son Heung-min | Korea Republic | Los Angeles | 27,200 km | 19,800 km | −7,400 km (−27.1%) |
| Kim Min-jae | Korea Republic | Munich | 32,500 km | 17,800 km | −14,700 km (−45.2%) |
| Kylian Mbappé | France | Madrid | 10,300 km | 6,400 km | −3,900 km (−37.8%) |
| Harry Kane | England | Munich | 7,600 km | 4,700 km | −2,900 km (−38.3%) |
| Nicolas Jackson | Senegal | Birmingham | 31,100 km | 19,400 km | −11,700 km (−37.6%) |
These are great-circle distances between standardised city-centre points, rounded to the nearest 100 km for publication. They are not the kilometres a player actually flew. No airport, connection, hotel, training base or personal movement has been inferred. The names identify recognisable club-and-country geographies; they do not turn the exercise into individual tracking.
Japan shows what the missing round trip is worth
The three Japan players sit in a remarkably narrow band. Kamada’s model falls from about 37,600 km to 20,500 km. Ueda’s falls from 38,000 km to 20,400 km, and Kubo’s from 40,100 km to 22,200 km. Each reduction is roughly 45%.
The small differences among London, Lille and San Sebastián matter less than the deleted gateway journey. In 2025, the model sends each player from Europe to the United States and back, then from Europe to Japan and back. In 2026, there is one Europe-to-Japan cycle. Travel between Japan’s four host cities contributes about 1,600 km; the long-haul entry and exit contribute most of the total.
Álvarez presents a similar pattern. With Madrid fixed as the club base, his two 2025 windows run through Buenos Aires and Guayaquil, then Miami twice. The 2026 programme stays in Argentina, moving from Córdoba to Buenos Aires. The resulting reduction is about 16,700 km. The calculation also shows why final venues matter: Argentina’s second October 2025 friendly was originally announced for Chicago, but the AFA later moved it to Miami. The model uses the match as played, not the first announcement.
One camp can still contain an enormous journey
Vinícius is the clearest counterexample to a simple “one window means less travel” story. His total still falls, but only from about 41,900 km to 34,900 km. Brazil’s 2026 programme begins with two matches in Australia and continues in Kolkata. In the model, Townsville to Brisbane to Kolkata creates about 10,000 km of travel inside the national-team camp. The equivalent between-match component across Brazil’s two 2025 windows was about 3,800 km.
The merged window removes a second departure from and return to Madrid. It does not remove the geography chosen within the remaining camp. Those two effects pull in opposite directions, leaving Vinícius with the smallest percentage reduction in the sample and the largest 2026 total.
Jackson’s route makes the same point on a different map. His Birmingham gateway distance almost halves, but Senegal’s published sequence still runs through Maputo, Bahir Dar and Marseille. The three match cities contribute nearly 8,900 km between them. “One camp” describes an administrative period, not a compact location.
The player and the national team bring different maps
Son and Kim follow exactly the same Korea Republic fixtures in this model. Their results are different because they begin elsewhere. Korea’s September 2025 matches were in the United States, relatively close to Son’s fixed Los Angeles base. October then required the long trip to Seoul. From Munich, Kim crossed between Europe, North America and Korea across the two windows.
Under the 2026 schedule, Korea plays all four matches at home. Son’s distance falls by 27.1%; Kim’s falls by 45.2%. The calendar rule is the same, and the national-team itinerary is the same. The club location changes the effect.
Mbappé and Kane show why percentages need kilometres beside them. Their totals decline by about 38%, close to Jackson’s proportional change. In absolute terms, however, Mbappé’s reduction is around 3,900 km and Kane’s 2,900 km. The Europe-based national-team routes were already much smaller than the long-haul examples. A large percentage does not automatically describe a large journey.
Fewer transitions are not a verdict on player load
One conclusion is uniform across all ten cases. Two 2025 windows create four club↔national-team transitions: club to country and country to club, twice. The 2026 window creates two. That means fewer repeated departures, arrivals and returns to the club environment. It also means a longer uninterrupted national-team camp.
The match spacing is less uniform. Counting only complete calendar dates between national-team matches, Argentina’s 2026 schedule provides two full days between each game. Korea has three each time. Senegal has three, then four. Japan’s shortest interval remains two full days, the same minimum as in 2025. The new design permits a longer sequence of matches without forcing every team into the same rhythm.
Distance is therefore not a synonym for load, recovery or welfare. The model does not know minutes played, training intensity, sleep timing, route connections, cabin conditions, medical decisions or how quickly a player re-enters club competition. Much of the 2026 window was still to be played at the publication cutoff, so representative minutes belong in a later update using completed match reports.
What the numbers establish is narrower and useful. The integrated window reliably removes one club-to-country cycle. For many long-haul players, that deletes a substantial gateway journey. The size of the gain then depends on two pieces of geography: the player’s club base and the national team’s route inside the window. The next articles in this series will separate those maps more closely, beginning with the contrasting Korea routes and the travel that remains inside a single camp.
Method note: FootballGravity modelled routes from each player’s 2026 club home city to his national team’s published September and October host cities, in fixture order, and back to the same club city. The 2025 comparison uses that same 2026 club base to remove transfer effects. Distances use the haversine formula and standardised city-centre coordinates; totals are summed before being rounded to the nearest 100 km. “Full rest days” are calendar dates strictly between matches. The routes do not reconstruct actual travel, and scheduled 2026 fixtures may change. Research cutoff: 26 September 2026.