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Football on trial: injury alert. Too much playing. Doctors and footballers in chorus: “This is risky”

It is an unprecedented injury emergency in football. In Serie A alone, 76 players are already out and many big names are in the infirmary. Abroad, things are even worse. A busy schedule and lack of breaks put athletes' health at risk, but organizations like FIFA and UEFA continue to expand competitions

Football on trial: injury alert. Too much playing. Doctors and footballers in chorus: “This is risky”

Call her anyway accident emergency, or, if you prefer, the logical consequence of a crazy calendar. The Football is a contact sport, so physical problems are part of the game, but what is happening in recent times goes far beyond simple side effects, both in Italy and in Europe. And so the longest season ever (in fact, next summer will also see the FIFA Club World Cup) has already begun with defections and various problems, some so serious as to call into question the very stability of the system, at least as conceived.

Injury alert: from Bremer to Rodri, so many big names in the infirmary!

The October break, the first after a month full of commitments, records some shocking numbers. Taking into account the Serie A only, in fact, there are already 76 injured out of a total that is just over 500: almost a fifth of the entire player base, therefore, has already stopped in the pits. What is most worrying, however, is the type of injury, since they are counted well 13 Cruciate Ligament Ruptures, or rather the nightmare of every footballer. The latest in chronological order were Bremer of Juventus e footings of Turin, but how can we forget Chess e Scalvini (Atalanta), Ferguson (Bologna) or Malinovskyi (Genoa), stopped due to a fractured fibula?

The problem is not only Italian, on the contrary abroad, if possible, go even worst, at least in terms of names. Real Madrid will have to do without Dani Carvajal (triple knee fracture) and David Alaba (crusader), Barcelona of Gavi, Have Stegen e Araujo, Manchester City's Rodri, Bayern Munich of Stanisic e Boyy, the Paris Saint Germain of Lucas Hernandez and Gonçalo Ramos, the Marseille of Inter Valentin Carboni, the latest to get injured while wearing the Argentina shirt.

A real mass slaughter of athletes, forced to deal with a speed of play much more evident than in the past, but also (if not above all) with a calendar that does not foresee breaks, focused only on offering more matches than ever, in defiance of health and spectacle.

Doctors and footballers in chorus: “We play too much, that’s how we take risks!”

Of course, one could argue that more games equal more money and indeed that is exactly the case, but taking the concept to extremes does not benefit anyone. Not the players, whose health is at risk like never before, not the clubs, who are the first to lose out if one of their “assets” breaks, and even less the organizing bodies, who are then forced to remove the stars from the sales posters.

"Playing every three days overloads the body, if one were to delve into the scientific merits one would be able to clearly see the damage that is being done – he explained Enrico Castellacci, historic doctor of the National team and current president of the doctors' association -. At this rate we will have other injuries because there is no recovery, both at a muscular and joint level. We often forget that these are footballers today, but one day they will be men with serious problems. This, however, is a cry in the wilderness, no one is listening to us: I denounced it as president of the doctors' association, but the top brass of football are not listening".

"I top teams can't train anymore playing 80 games a season, players will do 20 serious practices during the year – he echoed Umberto Calcagno, president of the Italian footballers' association -. We are all against UEFA, there is no winter break, nor summer break, it ends on July 15th with the championships starting immediately after. We risk making people lose their passion and therefore also money, when instead we should be doing all this to maximize”.

FIFA and UEFA don't listen to us: the cups are expanding and the Club World Cup starts in June

A step backwards is not foreseen, however, on the contrary Calendar, if possible, they even thickened.

La Uefa has launched the new formulas for Champions League and Europa League, increasing the number of matches (eight instead of six) and participants, along the lines of what has already happened at the national level, with the European Championships expanded to 24 teams against the 16 of the previous editions.

La Fifa, for its part, certainly did not sit back and watch and after the World Cup in Arabia between November and December (slipping championships and cups), it launched the first edition of the one for clubs, scheduled for next summer. It will start on June 15, 2025 and end on July 13, with 32 teams wandering around the USA (from Seattle to New York, passing through Los Angeles, Miami, Orlando, Atlanta, Nashville, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Washington and Philadelphia) in search of a substantial prize pool. The idea would also be interesting, but the 63 games in 29 days will not be a walk in the park and will affect the legs of increasingly tired athletes, who will then be forced to dive back into the new season almost by inertia.

National teams under accusation, but the coaches defend themselves: "We are victims"

I clubs complain, but they do nothing to change things. If it had been up to them, the new Champions League would have been even more packed (they wanted to get to 10 games in the first phase, compared to the current 8), not to mention the league reforms, blocked from within: imagining a Serie A with 18 teams (thus removing four matchdays in total) is almost impossible, as are the Premier League, Liga and Ligue 1, all now fossilized on the 20-team format.

Il the focus thus shifts to the national teams, accused of occupying important slots and definitively saturating the calendars. The old friendlies have been replaced by Nations League, not counting World Cup and European Championship qualifications, often "guilty" of injuries paid for by the clubs. "On average we play one match a month, which from July to March becomes six in eight – he defended himself Luis de la Fuente, CT champion of Europe with Spain -. The problem is certainly not those, but rather the 70 played previously. Those responsible are those who coordinate the seasons, the players: if I had to manage so many games, perhaps I would do it differently... it's not our fault, on the contrary we are victims of this situation". Nobody is wrong and nobody is right, in line with a system that is clearly wrong, yet convenient for many. At least until the public, the true judge of the most popular sport in the world, gets tired: then the parties involved could intervene, in the hope that it is not too late.

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