Playing Non-Professional Football in COVID-19 Time: A Narrative Review of Recommendations, Considerations, and Best Practices

Abstract

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020 resulted in widespread interruption of team sports training and competitions. Our aim was to review the recommendations and best practices in return to play in non-professional football after activity lockdown. The authors searched two electronic databases (PubMed, Web of Science) to extract studies published before September 15 2020. Twenty studies explained recommendations, considerations, or best practices in return to play in football, and all of them were clustered into three groups: (1) training load management (n = 10), (2) medical recommendations (n = 9), and (3) recovery related issues (n = 5). The way to establish a progression in training process should be based on training load management and managing the number of stimuli per time. Following the studies, this training process should be divided into three phases: phase 1—physical distancing should be maintained; phases 2 and 3—group training should start. Medical considerations were clustered into different groups: general, pre- and post- training, during training, education, planning to return to competition, and suggestions for post confinement weeks. In particular, social issues, strict hygiene questions, and continuous PCR testing should be considered in return to play over football season. Finally, since a correlation has been found between high-intensive training loads and immunoglobulin A, nutritional and lifestyle recovery strategies should be performed. Moreover, since immunosuppression has been related to congested schedules (<72 h between matches), football federations should avoid this situation.

COVID-19 Confinement Effects on Game Actions during Competition Restart in Professional Soccer Players

“…Thus, during the traditional season, the detraining phase happens at the end of the league competition due either to an injury or to an illness. These training situations are common and are not comparable to the situation caused by the confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the training conducted at home [ 19 ]. After the lockdown period, detraining effects of isolated training were expected, but the existing models do not fully describe the unprecedented conditions imposed by COVID-19 [ 39 ].…”

“…The return to sport of professional footballers occurred after an enforced lockdown never experienced before and longer than the normal annual season break. Moreover, this lockdown could affect the performance and injury risk of the players [ 19 , 20 ]. It is important to mention that the competition schedules and the increased match congestion, with a high frequency of matches separated by less than 72 h, could influence the volume and intensity of the players during the matches.…”

How the Covid-19 Pandemic Influenced the Approach to Risk Management in Cycling Events

“…The COVID-19 pandemic, which is still ongoing on a global scale, has nevertheless allowed us to take a look at some recent studies (Barbosa et al 2020;Garcia-Garcia et al 2020;Schnitzer et al 2020;Wong et al 2020;Rico-González et al 2021) that offer some analysis and provide partial answers or solutions. Initial recommendations by Wong et al (2020) included measures to control local spread through public awareness, the encouragement of personal hygiene, and the postponement or cancellation of large-scale public events.…”

Soccer and its unfolding in times of crisis Covid-19: Critical review

“…This is because there was the intention and the interest that the return of professional soccer was as soon as possible, which culminated in the attempt to create the so-called "bubble" of soccer with the creation of extremely demanding protocols that were met in detail( Because of the financial investment that professional soccer has, protocols could be made through clubs, federations, and associations to enable the return of the activities (Drewes et al, 2020;Meyer et al, 2021).However, for amateur and youth soccer the absence or high cost of protocols for smaller clubs has impacted and continues to impact the practice of soccer in this typology of soccer on the world stage (Fabre et al, 2020;Teran et al, 2020). Although, there are still doubts about the levels of transmission in soccer, a recent study monitored two measures of exposure, respiratory and interpersonal contact, two of those that players and referees are subject to during a soccer game, and the result indicates that soccer does not seem to be a high-risk sport (Goncalves et al, 2020).Perhaps one of the accessible situations for the safe return of amateur or youth soccer would be the adoption of best practices, studies already indicate that protocols of this nature have already been applied, since testing at all levels may be financially unfeasible (Côrte et al, 2020;Rico-Gonzalez et al, 2021).…”