Abstract
The study objective was to describe the types, localizations and severity of injuries
among first division Bundesliga football players, and to study the effect of playing
position on match and training injury incidence and severity, based on information
from the public media. Exposure and injuries data from 1 448 players over 6 consecutive
seasons were collected from a media-based register. In total, 3 358 injuries were
documented. The incidence rate for match and training injuries was 11.5 per 1 000
match-hours (95% confidence interval [CI]: 10.9–12.2), and 61.4 per 100 player-seasons
(95% CI: 58.8–64.1), respectively. Strains (30.3%) and sprains (16.7%) were the major
injury types, with the latter causing significantly longer lay-off times than the
former. Significant differences between the playing positions were found regarding
injury incidence and injury burden (lay-off time per incidence-rate), with wing-defenders
sustaining significantly lower incidence-rates of groin injuries compared to forwards
(rate ratio: 0.43, 95% CI: 0.17–0.96). Wing-midfielders had the highest incidence-rate
and injury burden from match injuries, whereas central-defenders sustained the highest
incidence-rate and injury burden from training injuries. There were also significant
differences in match availability due to an injury across the playing positions, with
midfielders sustaining the highest unavailability rates from a match and training
injury. Injury-risk and patterns seem to vary substantially between different playing
positions. Identifying positional differences in injury-risk may be of major importance
to medical practitioners when considering preventive measures.
Key words
epidemiology - soccer - male football
