The English Premier League.

Has to be the longest competitive schedule in team sports.

The 2016-17 season, which ended over the weekend with 10 matches … began on August 13 and concluded on May 21.

Yes, that is a season that lasted nine months and one week. Or, if you prefer, 40 weeks and one day.

Or 288 days. Of 365.

No wonder if always feels like the Premier League season almost never stops. And fans feel almost bereft to reach this short interim in the summer … when the Premier League IS NOT PLAYING.

Those numbers, above? They do not include preseason training, which can run to several weeks and includes exhibition matches, “friendlies” — often in some distant country.

Which makes a player’s commitment to his club team — or the English Premier League, anyway, a solid 10 months.

And we say “solid” because of this:

Unlike most European leagues, the Premier League does not take two or three weeks off around Christmas/New Year.

The Premier League plays right on through the “festive season”. In fact, the league can’t wait to play on Boxing Day — December 26, the day after Christmas — and always does.

(Europe’s other big leagues all take a break before/after Christmas, and find it more than a little daft that the PL does not.)

Anyway, the rigors of the Premier League season makes Major League Baseball’s six-month, 26-week regular season seem like light work. Even when we add on a month for spring training.

We are not including events that come after the rest of the league has shut down. In the Premier League, that would be the FA Cup final (Arsenal versus Chelsea, this coming Saturday).

In baseball, it can be up to a month extra, for the playoffs, but only the World Series finalists play that whole time.

I am fairly amazed that the Premier League’s players mostly survive through this (seemingly) eternal list of matches without needing a wheelchair.

Their sport is one of madcap sprinting for 90 minutes, interrupted by brief interludes when opponents try to chop them down below the knees, and the minute or so of rolling on the turf in agony (or in playacting).

And the 38 matches of the league schedule are not the whole of it. By any means.

Premier League clubs also play in the League Cup, which can last as long as six matches — and did, for winners Chelsea.

They also all have the FA Cup, which can be another six matches, and was, this season, for Chelsea and Arsenal.

Then there is the Champions League, in which the Premier League teams pretty much can count on playing at least six matches in group play. They play at least two more if they get to the round of 16, and another two if they get to the quarterfinals and two more if they reach the semifinals and one more for the championship match. And the one team that has to qualify to get into the group stage — Arsenal, this year — that’s one more match.

Manchester City and Leicester City each got to the quarterfinals, which meant 10 Champions League matches added to the schedule.

And we cannot forget the international breaks during the season, which see players from the Premier League dispersing to their home countries around the globe, and playing, oh, another six to 12 international games — which can be as intense as any club match.

(Many clubs believe international matches are bad for their players. Internationals generally take in qualifying for the European Cup or World Cup, which in Europe can be eight or 10 matches or 12 matches per season. More than a players feel semi-coerced to represent their homelands in these events, when they already are nicked up from the club season, and the pressure of the experience can be at least as draining as the club schedule.)

So, pretty much, the guys in the Premier League play very close to year-round, aside from the month of June, two times per year. (The odd-numbered years, which do not feature the European Cup or the World Cup.)

It is a hell of a schedule, and why anyone gets out the other side of it semi-whole, after playing maybe 60 matches … well, it is remarkable.

Some onlookers were a bit annoyed that the clubs without anything particular to play for on the final day seemed to mail in their effort. Lots of lopsided scores there.

But after 10 months of competition in three domestic competitions, perhaps one international club competition and then the various national team competitions … it is a miracle they can still walk.

If I were a Premier League player, right this minute I would be in some sunny place sitting in a whirlpool and napping every afternoon. They deserve it.