The week my star player went AWOL after an international break
In my first few years in the Premier League at Stoke, I would always hope that our fixtures against the top-six clubs would coincide with either their European midweek games or international matches. We wanted to catch them before or after these games, as we hoped their players might just take their eyes off the ball before we played them, or would be mentally or physically drained after those fixtures against the top clubs or nations - especially if they had to turn up at the Britannia Stadium on the Saturday. I always believed that would give us an edge, especially if it was a cold, windy and wet afternoon in Stoke!
Back then, it was the big clubs who took the biggest hits with losing players on international duty, whereas today most clubs in the Premier League or even the Championship will all lose significant numbers. When that started happening to me, as Stoke progressed and became more established, I found managing the workload of these players when they returned to your club could be extremely difficult. If travelling for four or five hours from across Europe - or for eight or nine hours from South America or Africa - on a Wednesday night before an important Premier League fixture on the Saturday wasn't hard enough, then on some occasions these trips might result in injuries to your players as well.
I would always have our medical team geared up to prepare and advise the players of the best recovery process to take, firstly during the period after their final game for us before the international break, and then also after the last of the two international games they might play before heading home. Recovery was everything, to make sure they were ready to go for our game on the Saturday, and I was lucky at all my clubs to have doctors and medical staff who took those periods very seriously, and also bought into a degree of common sense. Working with me, they soon understood my basic principles of player care, and little was left to chance.
During the players' time away, during the season and in the bigger summer tournaments, we would keep in contact with them and the medical staff would contact me with information on their health after every game. Ricardo Fuller (left) scored 50 goals in 208 games for Stoke under Pulis between 2006 and 2012 I am not sure if supporters realise, but even if players get injured in a league game before the break, their country still has the right to call on them to be checked and also treated by their own country's medical department - then, even for an international friendly on the other side of the world, whether they travel is not up to you. So, while playing for your country is a great honour and I understand why those who get the opportunity rarely turn down the chance to fulfil those dreams, for us managers having your top players away from you is a frustrating and worrying time.
Your players can be thousands of miles away, let loose to people whose livelihoods do not depend on your club's results - and you quickly learn how certain managers and countries would be much more accommodating than you when it comes to, let's say, relaxing more freely! One example of that happened at Stoke when we were fighting for promotion to the Premier League in the spring of 2008 and Ricardo Fuller, who in my opinion was the Championship's most gifted forward that season, was called up by Jamaica. Ric was really patriotic and proud of his heritage and would always show his utmost commitment to his country.