Incidence of Injuries in French Professional Soccer Players

Abstract

In this prevalence cohort study, injuries sustained during 15 seasons in a professional soccer team were investigated according to the different soccer seasons, number of matches per season, month the injury occurred, location, severity, playing position and the team's rank at the end of the French professional championship. Altogether, 903 injuries in 173 professional soccer players were reported. Injury incidence per 1 000 h of exposure during matches and training was 4.7±5. This incidence did not vary significantly between seasons. However, injury incidence increased after the year 2003 and constantly exceeded 4.2. In the same way, after 2002 muscle injury incidence always exceeded 2 per 1 000 h of exposure. Injury incidence peaked during the month of January. Hamstring muscle injury represented the most frequent injury. No difference in injury incidence was found according to the playing position or to the season whether the team participated or not in the European cup. No correlation was found with the team's rank at the end of the French championship. This study highlighted no significant variation on injury incidence over a 15-season period except for the muscle injury rate in high level soccer players.

Epidemiology of injuries in First Division Spanish football

“…Finally, our data showed significant differences in injury incidence depending on the phase of the season, as previous studies have found (Dauty & Collon, 2011;Ekstrand et al, 2011b;Hawkins et al, 2001;Morgan & Oberlander, 2001;Walden et al, 2005b;Woods et al, 2002). In the present study, the highest incidence of training injuries was observed during the pre-season, most likely because of inadequate recovery between seasons and/or inappropriate demands during the pre-season.…”

“…Recent European (Dauty & Collon, 2011;Ekstrand, Hagglund, & Walden, 2011b;Hagglund, Walden, & Ekstrand, 2005) and American (Morgan & Oberlander, 2001) epidemiological studies of professional male football players reported an overall incidence of approximately 6-8 injuries per 1000 h of exposure. Previous studies have shown that football injuries mainly affected the lower extremities (Wong & Hong, 2005), particularly the ankle, knee or thigh (Azubuike & Okojie, 2009;Ekstrand, Hagglund, & Walden, 2011a;Junge & Dvorak, 2004).…”

Injury Rate in Professional Soccer Players within the Community of Madrid: A Comparative, Epidemiological Cohort Study among the First, Second and Second B Divisions

“…We found several studies which support these findings [4,20,[42][43][44][45]. We believe that this finding may be explained by extrinsic factors, such as the characteristics of the playing terrain, as soccer is practiced on changing surfaces due to the climate, the length of the grass, the amount of watering prior to the match, etc., and the length and shape of the studs or intrinsic factors such as a muscle imbalance with the knee extensor muscles.…”

“…Within the joint injuries, the ankle sprains affecting the lateral collateral ligament were the most frequent. In the literature reviewed we have found a number of studies that identify joint injuries as the second most frequent after muscle injuries [4,5,16,22,27,46,[34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47]. Thus, we can affirm that joint injuries are the second most frequent after muscle injuries.…”

Squad management, injury and match performance in a professional soccer team over a championship‐winning season

“…Injury occurrence notably, results in decreased player availability and subsequent non-participation in match-play potentially impacts on team performance although contradictory observations exist (Árnason et al, 2004;Dauty & Collon, 2011;Eirale, Tol, Farooq, Smiley, & Chalabi, 2013;Hägglund et al 2013). The association between squad management, player availability and injury and success in professional soccer therefore warrants further attention.…”