English football stops for three weeks as breaks merge
English club football is stopping for three weeks for the first time.
The Premier League and the Championship will both pause for the longer break now that the old September and October international windows have been merged into one. Instead of stopping twice for two weeks, domestic football stops once for three weeks. National teams will fit four games into that slot BBC.
The pause runs from 21 September through 6 October 2026 Yahoo Sports. An international break is simply the period when league games stop so players can join up with their countries. This time the calendar packs in World Cup qualifiers, Nations League ties and friendlies in one long stretch.
Clubs are handling the empty training grounds in different ways.
Liverpool will keep training with the small group of players left behind, with a few days off built in. Brentford boss Keith Andrews has gone further and given his first-team squad a week off, with individual training programmes to follow.
About 12 Brentford players, including Callum Wilson and Igor Thiago, stayed at the training facility during the break. Five of that group are coming back from injury. The full squad will reconvene on Saturday, 26 September to start work again.
Brentford also plan a behind-closed-doors game against another English club on the weekend of 3 October. That match could give defenders Nathan Collins and Sepp van den Berg a chance to return to action. The rest of the side is expected to be made up of under-21 players.
Blackburn Rovers will welcome the breather. They had more than 10 players ruled out in the opening weeks of the season. They have only four international call-ups this time, which leaves room to get people fit. Gady Beyuku and Moussa Baradji have recently made comebacks, while Scott Wharton is close to a return.
Aston Villa are using the window for a special fixture. They will face Sevilla in the 15th Antonio Puerta Trophy on Friday, 2 October. The game is played in memory of 22-year-old Sevilla wing-back Antonio Puerta, who died on 28 August 2007 after suffering multiple cardiac arrests on the pitch during a La Liga game against Getafe. It adds another layer for Villa boss Unai Emery, who won the Europa League three times in a row with Sevilla.
Not every manager is happy with the shape of the new calendar. Manager Andoni Iraola said he will probably be left with no more than three days to prepare for the home game with Manchester City on 11 October. With players returning late from around the world, that first weekend back will test squads and staff.
For fans, this means a longer wait, then a rush. League football returns with a crowded run of fixtures, and the next pause is not far away. Brentford, for example, play Brighton on 8 November and Everton on 21 November around the second international break.
