Soccer Injuries

Soccer has one of the highest participation levels of any sport in the world. Data by the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System in 2006 showed that soccer injuries were far less frequent than other sports such as running, football, cycling, baseball, and skiing. However, soccer is a sport that requires athletes to run, jump, cut, turn, pivot, suddenly start and stop, and so forth. So, there’s no doubt that soccer is a high performance sport that requires a great deal of agility, strength, stamina and flexibility from players. Just the basic functions of soccer places a high demand on the human body and can very easily cause an array of injuries, especially if the body isn’t conditioned properly.

Professional athletes, parents of youth players, and even those leisurely participating in soccer should get familiar with the most common soccer injuries. The most common injuries are tendon and ligament injuries to the ankles and knees and strains to the groin and hamstring muscles. Let's look at three:

Sprained Ankle

A sprained ankle is one of the most commonly seen injuries among soccer athletes. It’s an injury to one or more ligaments in the ankle. The ankle joint is made up of three bones - the tibia, fibula, and talus. Ligaments are strong bands that connect bone to bone at joints. The ligaments essentially hold the ankle bones and joint into proper positioning. While ligaments are fairly elastic, they do have limitations. If a force from movement or trauma is greater than the ligament strength, then it may stretch or tear. There are many ligaments in the ankle, but the anterior talofibular ligament connecting the front of the fibula to the talus at the front outer edge of the ankle joint is the most commonly injured.

Ankle sprains most often occur when the foot rolls or turns inwardly, such as from landing awkwardly after a jump, hitting an uneven surface while running, or another soccer player landing on top of the foot and forcing the ankle into an abnormal position. During such actions, the ligaments can be stretched beyond their limitation and possibly tear.

Medically, ankle sprains are graded one through three based on the severity of the ligament injury:

Grade I - stretching and possible microscopic tearing.
Grade II - partial tearing.
Grade III- severe to complete tearing with ankle joint instability.

Hamstring Strain / Pulled Hamstring

The hamstrings are actually three muscles in the posterior thigh- the biceps femoris, semitendinosus, and semimembranosus. These muscles flex the knee and extend the hip. A hamstring strain or pulled hamstring is when one or more of the hamstring muscles abnormally stretch and possibly tear. The action may occur as the result of any of the following: a direct hit to the posterior thigh area, tightened hamstring muscles, a muscular imbalance where the quadriceps are significantly stronger than hamstrings, and/or muscle overload.

Medically, hamstring strains are graded one through three based on the severity of the muscle injury:

Grade I - stretching of the hamstring muscle fibers with small microscopic tearing.
Grade II - partial tearing of the muscle fibers.
Grade III - severe to complete tearing through the muscle fibers.

Adductor Strain / Pulled Groin

A pulled groin, also called an adductor strain, is the abnormal stretching and tearing of one or more of the adductor muscles - the pectineus, adductor brevis, and adductor longus, gracilis, and adductor magnus. This adductor muscles run from the inner pelvis to the inner thigh. They work together to pull the legs inwardly toward midline (adduction).

When the adductor muscles are stretched past their normal excursion, too fast, or too forcefully, the stretching may cause minor to complete tears, just as described under the grades of a hamstring strain. This injury is commonly seen in soccer players when they attempt to kick a ball that is met by an opposing player also trying to kick the ball.

Other common injuries include:

* concussions
* Achilles tendonitis
* iliotibial Band Syndrome
* patellofemoral Pain Syndrome
* plantar Fasciitis
* meniscus injury
* MCL tear
* shin splints