Physical fatigue, mental exhaustion: the overall health of players often takes a back seat, in the football ecosystem as well as in the eyes of fans or critics, who initially consider footballers overpaid. A global survey by FIFPRO (International Federation of Professional Football Associations), in other words the players’ union on a global scale, stigmatizes the serious excesses of the calendar.
It was conducted in October and November 2021 and was disclosed this Thursday in Paris, a few days before the Champions League final between Real Madrid and Liverpool. Coaches, sports scientists, doctors, physiotherapists also participated in the work. Kylian Mbappé, in a video, paved the way by recalling the infernal cadences. It was his face that wore the poster for the meeting, entitled “process of transition to a calendar that protects the health of players”.
The survey reveals striking results: 54% of players say they have suffered an injury due to overwork. 82% of “performance coaches”, such as athletic trainers, say they have observed mental health problems in players due to work overload. Technicians recommend a threshold of 55 games per season.
During the 2020-2021 season, 72% of footballers in the world played more than 55 matches. The players in the Champions League final are already in the red: Sadio Mané and Mohamed Salah have already played 69 games with Liverpool and their selections, 61 for Virgil Van Dijk. In Madrid, Vinicius has 59 games, Thibaut Courtois 57, Eder Militao 57. From September 30 to December 20, 2020, Real midfielder Luka Modric played 24 consecutive games (18 with Madrid, 6 with Croatia), “more four times the recommended maximum. 72.6% of all minutes played were in the “critical zone”
During the press conference, Grégory Dupont, the trainer of the Blues, world champions in 2018 (he also worked at Real and Strasbourg), detailed: “When we play every three days, the incidence of injuries is multiplied by six. So there are six times more injuries when you play every three days. We dug a little deeper. Mental fatigue is a central element. When a player feels tired the day before the match, without going to see the coach to tell him – just when they were asked the question -, the risk of injury is then multiplied by 30.
“If no one communicates, we will never get out of it”
“There is a third factor, the level of strength, adds Dupont. The day after the match, the hamstring decreases by 15 to 30% of its strength depending on the player. When we are still at -10% the day before the next match, the risk of injury increases to 90. If he has not recovered on the muscular level, the risk is very very high. When we performed these tests, we did not communicate them to the players to avoid increasing their chances of getting injured. “Because you also sometimes have to fight against the footballers themselves who, despite their fatigue, still want to play everything.
Professor Vincent Gouttebarge, FIFPRO medical director, concludes: “The players have the same opinion as the coaches: there are too many matches in the elite. There is the wish and the will to have a summer truce and another winter which are respected. Communication between Fifa and UEFA to harmonize calendars, find out about new competitions imagined, is essential, in particular to secure the breaks. But if nobody communicates, we will never get out of it. »
