Just days before the World Cup starts and Rio Ferdinand, Manchester United and England captain, has been ruled out of the competition after sustaining a knee ligament injury during training.
A number of people are superstitious about the reasons for the injury, chalking it up to bad luck. Ferdinand’s injuries are alternately cited as the result of poor attention to prior injuries, and the outcome of a long and unwelcome injury jinx in which players are hurt directly before finals.
I believe that the luck theory is less than accurate and that the reason that top players get injured before donning the England soccer jersey is most likely due to the repetitive strain of the sheer number of matches that the team faces in a single season.
Playing for a top side also means taking part in four competitions a season. These include The Premier League, The Champions League or Europa Cup, The FA Cup and the Carling Cup. This list doesn’t include any of the pre- and post-season games that occur in a season, or the number of pre-season friendlies in which a team can participate.
As well as playing a lot of games, England plays games with a high degree of intensity. Whereas on the continent the game is often played in a more stop/start fashion, in England it is often full blood from the first whistle and played at a speed and pace which makes injuries inevitable. A number of top players are known to engage in between forty and fifty difficult games in a single season, plus training.
The workload is immense and the toll comes on the player’s body. With so much time spent playing, it should be more surprising when a player doesn’t get injured.
Consider England’s present line-up. Rio Ferdinand, Bobby Zamora, Owen Hargreaves, and Michael Owen all suffered injuries this year, leaving the squad, which originally had 30 men insanely short staffed. Wolcott injured a shoulder against Stroke in 2008, leading Capello to feel that he was lacking as a player.
It is a miracle that several players on the team are fit. Ledly King keeps his knees in top shape by utilizing a specialist trainer. Other recovering athletes with injuries this season include Steven Gerard, and Joe Cole, Ashley Cole, Aaron Lennon, Glen Johnson, Wayne Rooney and David James. Gareth Barry will most likely miss the first game of the finals due to recuperation from his last injury. Then of course there is David Beckham, who’s body finally gave up a couple of months ago after almost two constant years of soccer with LA Galaxy and Milan, when an Achilles injury ruling England’s most capped player out of the playing squad for the finals.
If England wants to win another World Cup, we may have to tone down our enthusiasm for fast-paced, highly intense games.
Tags: england soccer, england world cup, soccer, World Cup