Injury epidemiology in professional football in South America compared with Europe
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Published on: May 26, 2020
Håkan Bengtsson1,2, Pablo Alfredo Ortega Gallo3, Jan Ekstrand1,2
1Unit of Community Medicine, Department of Health, Medicine and Caring Sciences, Linköpings Universitet, Linköping, Östergötland, Sweden.
Objective:
To describe the injury epidemiology in professional football in South America and compare it with European professional football.
Methods:
Data about football exposures and injury occurrences were registered in Six teams participating in Copa Libertadores in 2016. These teams' exposure and injury data were compared with teams participating in the UEFA Elite Club Injury Study during the 2015/2016 and 2016/2017 seasons.
Results:
A total of 271 injuries were reported in the South American cohort representing a training injury incidence of 3.2 (95% CI=2.7 to 3.7) injuries/1000 hours of training exposure and 20.9 (95% CI=17.3 to 25.1) injuries/1000 hours of match exposure. While no differences in muscle injury incidence were observed between South American and European teams, the ligament injury incidence in training among South American teams was significantly higher than European teams (0.6 vs 0.3, RR 1.87, 95% CI 1.21 to 2.87). In addition, a significantly higher proportion of all reported injuries among South American teams than European teams occurred in training.
Conclusions:
A larger proportion of injuries occur in training in South American compared with European professional football. Specifically, ligament injuries in training were more frequent among South American teams.
