As South America's footballers flew back to Europe after this week's World Cup qualifiers, they may have been wondering whether the so-

called co-ordinated international calendar was just a figment of FIFA's imagination.

Many will face their third match in eight days in different continents at the weekend after being subjected to exactly the sort of treatment the calendar was supposed to avoid.

Players such as Hernan Crespo of Argentina and Chelsea, Ronaldo of Brazil and Real Madrid and Roque Santa Cruz of Paraguay and Bayern Munich were among them.

All played for their European clubs last week, then flew overnight to South America, played for their countries on Tuesday or Wednesday and travelled straight back to their clubs.

Most of the South American coaches had to make do with a single training session before matches which were crucial to their hopes of reaching Germany in 2006.

Paraguay coach Anibal Ruiz

rated his team's meeting in Asuncion with Brazil as the most important of their campaign.

Yet he had only two brief sessions with his players before what should have been one of international football's matches of the year.

Brazil midfielder Kaka blamed lack of training after his partnership with Ronaldo and Ronaldinho -- a dream trio on paper given their current club form -- failed to produce a goal in Wednesday's 0-0 stalemate.

"You can't expect us to produce the same performances we do with our clubs," he said.

"At Milan, I'm used to playing every Wednesday and Sunday with the same players. All we could do here was have a talk at the team hotel.

"It's difficult to create an understanding in this way."

The trouble arose after FIFA agreed to make an exception to its calendar so that South America could retain its unique World Cup qualifying system in which the ten countries meet each other twice in a single group.

To accommodate 18 rounds of matches, FIFA allowed two sets of games -- the first was this week and the second will be in November -- to take place on dates allocated for friendly internationals.

But, in a move apparently aimed at appeasing European clubs, FIFA also ruled that the friendly international rule would apply in which players would only have to be available to their national teams 48 hours before kick-off compared to five days for competitive games.

Like many compromise solutions, it ran the risk of pleasing nobody.

The Argentina Football Association (AFA) protested to FIFA after Inter Milan included midfielders Javier Zanetti and Cristian Gonzalez in their squad for a Serie A match with Reggina last Sunday.

Argentina coach Marcelo Bielsa released them, saying they would not be in the right shape to face Ecuador in Buenos Aires on the Tuesday evening if they only arrived on Monday morning.

"It's an aggression against the players because it forces them to take on commitments in the wrong conditions," said Bielsa.

"They weren't going to be able to meet the demands of professional football."

He added: "I told them that asking them not to travel in these circumstances showed that we value and recognise them as players.”