prevention

[This is an interpretation of the following published medical paper. To read the original in a pdf file click the title of the article just below.]

Most of the world's football is played at amateur and community level, where there is often little professional attention paid to muscle balance, power and conditioning. The majority of soccer injuries are to the lower limb, especially the knee and ankle. Most knee injuries occur in young people - eighty-five percent of injuries occur in players under 23 and half of these affect children under 15. So over 40% of soccer knee injuries occur in children under 15!

Women soccer players, too, are at particular risk, with an injury rate twice that of men.