• One month off the same injury, on the other leg

  • Opinion Fatigue and the coronavirus

30 years ago it was still possible for the best footballer in Europe to allow himself a pack of cigarettes a day and an unbridled diet, even washed down with spirits.

Most likely, with such a rhythm of life, added to a non-specific training, injuries would arise.

However, doctors used to always have a syringe on hand.

And that infiltration balm worked a little miracle every weekend.

This is how

Robert Prosinecki

saved his

last season in Belgrade until he lifted the 1991 European Cup with the Red Star. He was 22 years old and had a portentous elegance.

He was the explosive midfielder chosen by Real Madrid to build a winning project.

The Yugoslav champion's doctors had already detected more than a dozen muscle injuries, but

Ramon Mendoza

did not seem to notice that detail.During the summer of 2019, when

Florentino Pérez

had already decided his signing, the white club's coaching staff observed with relief the injury history of

Eden Hazard

.

The general director,

Jose Angel Sanchez

, and his right hand,

Juni Calafat

, negotiated in London with the guarantee that the winger had barely missed three of the 63 official matches of the 2018-19 season with Chelsea.

A simple overload on the back.

Nothing to do with the sprained ankle that had forced him to undergo surgery three years earlier. There was not a single complaint about his eating habits, or about his undeniably slim figure.

At 28, the Belgian inherited the number 7 that had belonged to

Cristiano Ronaldo

.

No one in all of Europe seemed better suited to accept such a challenge.

Today, a year and a half later, Hazard is only the shadow of that dream of greatness.

Nine injuries, four of them muscular, are to blame.

43 games off

There is a gulf between the Prosinecki and Hazard cases.

The one marked by the evolution of sports medicine at Real Madrid, where today anthropometric techniques are used, daily analytics to control weight and electrical activity records with which to evaluate the state of the fibers.

Prevention is based on tensiomyography, a technology that controls the level of muscle fatigue after each training session. However, until last week, Hazard had 283 days and 43 games off at Real Madrid.

In other words, 54.4% of official commitments had been lost.

How are these figures possible?

Why do you remember those from other extremes like

Gareth Bale

,

Arjen Robben

Y

Jesé Rodriguez

? The relapse of the '7' in the anterior rectus of the left thigh fuels a cursed legend with which it doubles the records of its predecessors.

Without going any further, from Bale, who suffered 15 muscle injuries in seven seasons and lost 101 games (25.2%).

Robben, with only two fiber breaks in two years, missed 14 games (13.8%).

A more particular case was that of Jesé, whose torn cruciate ligament in his left knee separated him from 38 games (21%).

But why do the extremes fall further?

Back and hips

This question does not admit a single answer, although the scientists point to some factors.

According to one of the most comprehensive studies, published in 2013 by

Carl Askling

,

Magnus tengvar

Y

Alf Thorstensson

at

British Journal of Sports Medicine

, the most punished area in the anatomy of a footballer is the one that groups the hamstrings, in the back of the thigh.

In the opinion of these Swedish doctors, the injuries are triggered by "high intensity efforts during the race, in explosive actions or during accelerations".

In other words, the kind of activity that extremes tend to repeat, over and over, and Hazard meets some of the intrinsic requirements that exacerbate his rectus anterior problems.

From the age, over thirty, to some weakness in the dorsal area and the hip, a consequence of previous injuries at Chelsea.

It should not be forgotten the fatigue that he dragged after his positive in Covid-19, nor the suffocating pressure that he has been supporting since he landed in Madrid.

All these risk factors were described by

Grant Freckleton

Y

Tania pizzari

, in a work also published by the already mentioned British magazine.

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