Regardless of whether Zhou Yi's vacation was "bitter" or comfortable, his "winter break" would not be very long.

On January 3rd, Dortmund would begin their winter training camp.

This meant that after spending New Year's Day at home on January 1st, Zhou Yi would have to leave China on the 2nd and return to Germany to resume his strenuous training.

And he had only returned home on December 26th... So, all told, he wouldn't even be home for a week.

However, Zhou Yi should still consider himself lucky. If he were playing in the Premier League, he wouldn't even have a single day to go home. He'd only have time to return home during the summer break each year.

Because the Premier League doesn't have a winter break.

Winter breaks aren't uncommon in European football. Almost every league has a winter break of varying lengths, except for the Premier League, which doesn't have one at all.

Generally, European leagues are now divided into two categories. One category, like China, finishes its entire season within a calendar year. Iceland, Sweden, and Norway, among other Nordic countries, do this. The other category is leagues with seasons that span two years. A season's league games are played over two years.

Nordic countries schedule their leagues to be completed within a year because they have nearly six months of long, cold winters that are unsuitable for outdoor sports. Other countries, while not having such extreme winters as the Nordic countries, still experience winter when the year ends and are affected by the cold winter climate. To avoid this impact, or minimize it, setting a winter break is a logical choice.

The length of the winter break varies from country to country, and even from year to year, with slight adjustments made based on the schedule and climate conditions. Generally, the more southerly and warmer the country, the shorter the league's winter break. For example, Spain only has a fourteen-day winter break, and Italy also has fourteen days. France is a bit further north than Italy and Spain, so their winter break is three weeks, twenty-one days. What about the Bundesliga? This season, the Bundesliga's winter break is thirty-three days long, over a month.

Sounds pretty long, right?

But it's actually not the longest. The countries with the longest winter breaks in Europe are Russia, followed by Ukraine. It's surprising that Russia, a country with such a cold climate, also has a league that spans two years. Their winter break can be close to ninety days, while Ukraine simply has a winter break of over ninety days.

In Bundesliga history, this season's winter break is far from the longest, and can't even be considered long. The longest Bundesliga winter break was seventy-seven days long, two and a half months!

Speaking of winter breaks, it's actually a very controversial topic. Some people agree with it, others support it. In Germany, there's constant debate about the length of the winter break. Beckenbauer has repeatedly stated: "Among the top five European leagues, Germany has the largest population but the fewest teams, and yet it has such a luxurious winter break. I don't think it's necessary to interrupt the players' form like this."

Beckenbauer has always been a staunch supporter of shortening the winter break. However, this "Football Emperor" has even proposed a more extreme and exaggerated suggestion than shortening the winter break, which is to completely eliminate the summer break and, like the Nordic countries, have Germany's season completed within a calendar year, starting in March each year and continuing until December. When he made this suggestion, Beckenbauer was still the coach of the German national team, and his proposal naturally considered the interests of the German national team. His reason was: "Major international events are generally held in the summer, and this approach would allow players to maintain a higher level of competitive form in international events, because that's exactly the middle of the season."

At the time, this suggestion was even supported by many Bundesliga coaches.

But fortunately, the German Football Association didn't listen to Beckenbauer. Otherwise, for the increasing number of German teams in Europe now, Beckenbauer's proposal would be nothing short of a trouble-making machine. The knockout stages of European competitions generally start in mid-to-late February, but at that time, Bundesliga teams may have only just started their pre-season training. European competitions would shatter the pre-season training plans of Bundesliga teams, making it impossible for the teams participating in European competitions to prepare properly for the new season, thereby affecting their performance throughout the entire season.

Those who oppose the winter break have their reasons and considerations, and those who support the winter break also have their considerations and reasons.

The main reason is that it can provide the team with enough rest during the cold season.

In fact, the Bundesliga didn't have a winter break to begin with. At that time, football matches would only pause during holidays. Whether it was December or January, football matches would proceed as usual, similar to the Premier League today.

For example, on January 1, 1928, Bayern Munich played a crucial match against Eintracht Frankfurt. On January 3, 1954, the two teams played an important Southern German league match in Offenbach - at that time, it was an important match in West Germany, with a status no less than today's Bundesliga. On January 2, 1966, Bayern Munich and Dortmund played an important cup match.

Things began to change in the winter of 1969. The following year, the World Cup held in Mexico in 1970 started very early, on May 31. Therefore, the German Football Association announced the schedule in late June 1969, which only included the first half of the league season. "If the national team qualifies for the World Cup finals in Mexico, the league can only end in early May, otherwise the end date is May 30," the announcement said.

Later, the West German team defeated Scotland and qualified for the World Cup finals. Based on this, the German Football Association announced the schedule for the second half of the season in early November 1969. The second half started on January 10, 1970, the quarter-finals of the German Cup were scheduled for late March, the semi-finals on April 8, and the final on May 12 or 16.

In this way, after the final German Cup final, the German national team would have half a month to prepare for the World Cup.

The plan was good, but plans are not as good as changes. The purpose of a good plan is to be changed.

That winter, Central Europe experienced an exceptionally severe winter. On New Year's Eve, the temperature in Berlin dropped to minus seventeen degrees Celsius. Six days later, the city was covered in thirty-one centimeters of snow. On Thursday evening, January 8, at ten o'clock, Walter Baresel, the German Football Association official responsible for scheduling, finally decided to cancel the first round of the second half of the season. A week later, he announced the cancellation of six more matches.

Baresel said at the time: "The worst thing is that we must end this season before May 2nd. For the World Cup, we can't delay. What should we do now? The real winter has just begun..."

His words later proved to be prescient, because after that, intermittent snowfall continued in Berlin until mid-March. In January alone, thirty-seven Bundesliga matches were canceled as a result.

The multiple adjustments to the schedule led to some rather strange arrangements. In the middle of April, Rot-Weiss Essen had to play four league matches at their home stadium in nine days. The reason why that year's league was able to end on time was entirely because the German match schedule was completely disrupted. The 1969-1970 German Cup final was held after the start of the 1970-1971 season. The final winner was Kickers Offenbach. Although this team had entered the Bundesliga by August 29, 1970, when the final was held, it was still theoretically considered a second-tier team.

Sounds confusing, right?

This fully illustrates how chaotic football organization was in the past.

After such a chaotic season, many people had realized the importance of a proper, long winter break. But this didn't bring about change at the time. The mainstream view at the time was still this: "...We don't think the Bundesliga needs the longer vacation that the public is demanding now, because no one can accurately know when winter weather conditions will affect matches. Maybe it's November, maybe it's between March and April. What we need most is a flexible schedule and some spare match days to arrange matches that have been delayed for various reasons."

So, the German Football Association didn't make any changes at the time. Four years later, because of the World Cup being held at home, the league once again needed to end early. As a result, the first match of the second half of the season was scheduled for January 5. This time, they didn't encounter the extreme weather they had four years earlier.

It wasn't until the 1980s that Bundesliga players truly had a "winter break" instead of a so-called extended Christmas vacation. In the 1982-1983 season, the length of the winter break exceeded forty days for the first time. Two years later, in the 1984-1985 season, the length of the winter break exceeded fifty days and lasted for two months for the first time. After that, this time once exceeded seventy days.

In Germany, the reason for the emergence of the winter break is because the erratic winter weather would disrupt the rhythm of the league. In the past Bundesliga leagues, the technical level was relatively low. When the weather was too cold, the turf on the pitch would freeze, the football would be difficult to see, and if there was heavy snow, the climate would be a white expanse.

However, nowadays, these are no longer problems. Since the 2008-2009 season, all Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 teams have implemented geothermal systems in their home stadiums, and some third-tier teams also have such facilities.

But the winter break, as a tradition, is difficult to completely eliminate. It can only be adjusted in length.

No German club thinks the winter break is bad, especially after having the Premier League as a reference. One view is that the German national team performs better in international competitions than the English national team because the Bundesliga has a winter break, which allows more German internationals to get enough rest and reduce the chance of injury, while the English national team is burdened by the long and dense Premier League schedule. When the season ends and national team matches arrive, all the internationals are exhausted and simply cannot produce good performances in important international competitions.

If the current winter break could still be as long as seventy days like before, then Zhou Yi could completely spend the Spring Festival at home.

But unfortunately, the current winter break is basically only thirty-odd days.

If there is a World Cup or European Championship, it will be even shorter.

After returning to Germany, he will travel south with his teammates to train in warm Spain, where he will prepare for the second half of the season.

That feeling is like starting a new season again.