ArticleArchives of orthopaedic and trauma surgery2022
Timing return-to-competition: a prospective registration of 45 different types of severe injuries in Germany's highest football league.
Article in Archives of orthopaedic and trauma surgery, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Mechanisms, Injury Patterns and Biomechanical Factors of Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injuries in Football (Soccer): A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Video-Analysis Studies.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2026Pooled it
- Time-loss and recurrence of lateral ligament ankle sprains in male elite football: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports · 2022Pooled it
- Match running performance upon return to play in professional male LaLiga football players following anterior cruciate ligament rupture.Biology of sport · 2026Article
- National health registries in professional German football: development and first results from the men's and women's 1st and 2nd Bundesliga.BMJ open sport & exercise medicine · 2026Article
- Time to return to sports in football players recovering from lower limb soft tissue injuries: a systematic review with meta-analysis.BMJ open sport & exercise medicine · 2026Article
- Association Between theGenes · 2025Article
- Associations between injury occurrence and environmental temperatures in the Australian and German professional football leagues.Environmental epidemiology (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2025Article
- The Time Course of Injury Risk After Return-to-Play in Professional Football (Soccer).Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2025Article
- Increased rate of injuries to the anterior cruciate ligament in amateur soccer players after the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.Archives of orthopaedic and trauma surgery · 2024Article
- Supplementary orthopaedic screening for children and adolescents to prevent permanent skeletal deformities - protocol for the "OrthoKids" study.BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2023Article
- Determination of the Prevalence of Knee and Hip Clinical Osteoarthritis in the Active Professional Male Footballer and Its Association with Pain, Function, Injury and Surgery.Sports (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Weekly External Load Performance Effects on Sports Injuries of Male Professional Football Players.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- LOW BACK PAIN ESTIMATES IN PROFESSIONAL SOCCER: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS.Acta ortopedica brasileira · 2023Article
- Sports Injuries of a Portuguese Professional Football Team during Three Consecutive Seasons.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Predictive Modeling of Injury Risk Based on Body Composition and Selected Physical Fitness Tests for Elite Football Players.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionMany professional football players sustain at least one severe injury over the course of their career. Because detailed epidemiological data on different severe injuries in professional football have been missing so far, this study describes the frequency and return-to-competition (RTC) periods of different types of severe football injuries. MATERIAL AND
methodsThis epidemiological investigation is a prospective standardised injury analysis based on national media longitudinal registration. Injuries were classified according to the consensus statement by Fuller et al. (2006). The analysis includes injuries sustained by players of the first German football league during the seasons 2014-2015 to 2017-2018. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: II.
resultsOverall, 660 severe injuries were registered during the four seasons (mean 165 per season; 9.2 per season per team; incidence in 1000 h: 0.77). The body region most frequently affected by severe injury was the knee (30.0%; 49.5 injuries per season/SD 13.2) followed by the thigh (26.4%; 43.5 injuries/SD 4.2) and the ankle (16.7%; 27.5 injuries/SD 5.0). The distribution of injuries over the course of a season showed a trend for ACL ruptures to mainly occur at the beginning of a season (45.8%), overuse syndromes such as achillodynia (40.9%) and irritation of the knee (44.4%) during the winter months and severe muscle and ankle injuries at the end of a season. ACL ruptures showed the longest RTC durations (median 222 days).
conclusionThis study presents detailed epidemiological data on severe injuries in professional football. The body region most frequently affected by severe injuries was the knee. Several types of severe injuries showed a seasonal injury pattern. The appropriate timing of RTC after an injury is one of the most important and complex decisions to be made. This study provides information on the typical time loss due to specific severe football injuries, which may serve as a guideline.
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