Influence of preparation and football skill level on injury incidence during an amateur football tournament

Abstract

For the first time, this study presents detailed information on the injury incidence and injury patterns of an amateur football tournament. Less-trained recreational players sustained significantly more injuries than better-trained amateur players, probably due to the lack of sufficient preparation before the tournament. Preventive strategies against overuse and traumatic injuries of recreational football players should start with regular training and warm-up programmes in preparation for a tournament.

11.361 sports injuries in a 15-year survey of a Level I emergency trauma department reveal different severe injury types in the 6 most common team sports

“…The higher psychological tension and physical impact on players in competitive situations compared to practice sessions as one important cause for competition-related injuries has not yet been fully analysed, neither has the influence on play-ers in team sports. Such psychological influence on soccer injuries has been well described in the literature in the specific situations in soccer tournament or after implementation of a new professional soccer league [8,9]. Otherwise, team sports with a higher rate of severe injuries sustained in training may not have such a high difference in physical impact between training and competitive situations, which was shown in the case of volleyball in this study.…”

“…In scientific team sports research injury severity is commonly defined as the time away from sports [18]. This specific classification requires detailed knowledge about an athlete's return to sports and is commonly used in injury analysis in season or tournament settings [8,9]. A continuous followup of patients in the emergency department was not possible in this retrospective survey because Level I emergency trauma departments only provide acute treatment of severe sports injuries, whereas follow-up examinations are mainly organised in an ambulant setting.…”

“…Injury prevention initiatives for team handball [7] and other team sports [2] are also available. Despite these strategies, the proportion of severe injuries in team sports remains still high [3,8,9] and the questions is, how to focus injury prevention strategies in team sports, particularly for severe injuries. The still high occurrence of head injuries and concussion or severe knee injuries like ACL injuries in team sports, shows the need for increasing injury prevention strategies in popular team sports like soccer or team handball and the need for further scientific projects.…”

“…Further research into severe team sports injuries should provide detailed information about the origin and characteristics of such injuries [10,11]. Next to injury reports of team sports seasons or sports tournaments [1,3,8,9], such injury data in sports can also be assessed and investigated by patients data obtained in medical settings [12,13]. Acute injuries are not only treated by family doctors, sports medicine physicians and orthopaedists in an out-patient setting but also at Level I emergency trauma departments.…”

Prävention von Gehirnerschütterungen im Juniorenfußball – Ist eine Abschaffung des Kopfballspiels notwendig?

“…Fußball ist Weltsportart Nummer 1, ist auf allen Kontinenten mit einem Amateur-und Profifußballlevel vertreten und stellt auch im Kindesalter die weltweit beliebteste Sportart dar [4,13]. Neben den häufig von Verletzungen betroffenen Körperregionen wie Oberschenkel, Sprunggelenk oder Kniegelenk, treten Verletzungen beim Fußball auch am Kopf auf, wenn auch selten [18,27,29,33]. Da Schädelhirntraumen im Fußball als seltene Verletzungen trotzdem eine größere Verletzungsschwere darstellen können, wird in verschiedensten wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten der Literatur auf dieses Thema hingewiesen und mehrere Konsensentscheidungen von internationalen Experten liegen hierzu vor [39 -41].…”