Well, it's ok - I'm just saying: anything that involves little more strategy is good - for my opinion.
In RL - players have 2 (or more) weeks free from practice
In RL football there was InterToto Cup - as I know teams that participate was pretty much shorten on preparation for new season. It's on them if they even want to participate.
But if you look RL - friendly games could be part of the training camp (preparation for new season). So, maybe players could play games and be in camp at same time
There is many other things (for me more important) that doesn't look like RL football.