Big Data predicts 50% more injuries in the 11 pending league games

Injuries will increase by around 50% over their usual volume in the First Division in the 11 days of the League that will be played from June 11. This is the conclusion that emerges from a study carried out by the team from the Ripoll and De Prado Medical Center , which receives the excellence rating from FIFA. To the usual injury rate based on data from the last 20 years, the work adds other variables, such as the period of confinement, training days and the stress suffered by soccer players, to prepare the algorithm from which the results are obtained and the conclusions. The greatest danger, according to Pedro Luis Ripoll, traumatologist and director of the center, is generated by the short time of collective training, with the ball, and the absence of preparation games: «This study does not intend to go against the return of the League, but to warn of what should be done immediately to prevent the increase in injuries from becoming catastrophic. "

The medical-mathematical report warns that we are entering an unknown land, because the soccer players have been in the longest period of inactivity in history. No matter how much exercise they have done at home, the fact that they have spent seven weeks without exercising the specific gestures of soccer implies a deterioration in the automatic control that the brain exercises over the locomotor system, which is known as proprioception. "The brain sends a signal to contract the muscle and protect the joint, thereby preventing injury. That mechanism is now under minimums, "warns Ripoll.

After the 20 days of training, there have been 28 injuries in total, 19 muscle injuries and nine traumatic injuries in 14 of the 20 Primera teams. The amount is not alarming, since many of them are due to overloads, before which the coaches separate the footballer from the sessions. If they worsen, the recovery period would practically rule them out for the remainder of the League. In Ripoll's opinion, which stands out among the most complex are those suffered by Joao Félix (Atlético de Madrid), Jorge Herrando (Osasuna) and Sergio Álvarez (Celta), this performance is key: “Technicians must be warned of the need to measure the risks of the footballers touched, because an injury can mean the loss of the player for the entire tournament, since it will last only five weeks ». In the Bundesliga, during the first two days after the return, 56% of the teams exhausted all five changes and 28% made four, one more than allowed so far. "And that in Germany," he adds, "the players went without training for 20 days; in Spain, 60 ».

The algorithm of the study is based on the percentages applied to the rate resulting from the history of injuries over the last 20 years, different for teams that play a game per week or two. Confinement time aggravates the rate by 20%, stress by 5% and the loss of the protective effect due to the decrease in training, by 4.5%, according to assessments based on extensive medical literature. To this must be added the increased risk, when playing games with less than four days off. It is 32% for muscle injuries and 9% for the rest.

Based on the numerical reconfiguration, a pure 'Big Data' exercise, the study figures that teams accustomed to playing one game a week will see an increase in the number of expected injuries, according to the historic, from 11.4 (4.4 muscular, 1.9 ligamentous and five of other types) to 17.1 (6.6 muscular, 2.9 ligamentous and 7.5 for the rest). This supposes an increase of more than 50% in the global number of foreseeable injuries in normal conditions in the same period of time.

As for the teams accustomed to participating in European competitions, the increase in the number of injuries would be somewhat less. They would go from presenting 12.5 injuries (4.8 muscle, 2.1 ligament and 5.5 other) to 17.4 injuries (6.8 muscle, 2.9 ligament and 7.6 of the rest). The increase, in this strip, the most numerous, would be 40%. The average of both groups would therefore be very close to 50%.

«In a normal preseason, which lasts about 35 days, they usually play around seven friendlies, in addition to continuous group training. Now, after a confinement of 60 and with less preparation time in the collective sense, the teams will return to the competition without previous matches, "compares Ripoll, with the intention that the study done in his clinic affects the warning to the technicians.

In accordance with the criteria of The Trust Project

• Joao Félix
• FIFA
• Spain
• Atlético de Madrid
• Germany
• sports

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