Photo Credit: JP PORTRAITS
BY DAVID DEACON
No matter the physicality, every sport is going to have some risk of injury, ranging from a sprained ankle to a concussion. However, what makes a sport truly dangerous is the likelihood that an injury will happen. When comparing the two immensely popular sports of American Football and International Futball (soccer), it is clear that soccer players sustain more injuries than footballers.
The two possible reasons for soccer players getting injured more than footballers are simple: soccer players play their games nonstop and football players are more protected. According to usindoor.com, overuse injuries are cumulative injuries, which occur over time due to stress on muscles, joints, and tissues that haven’t been able to recover. This can leave the areas of growth weak and inflexible, opening them up to injury. Since soccer players are sprinting continuously on the pitch, overuse injuries start to develop and increase a soccer player’s risk for injury.
Anyone who watches soccer and football will automatically realize the attire on both sides. While soccer players only have shin pads, football players are decked out in protective gear from head to toe. This gear protects football players in two ways: protection against player-to-player contact and protection from player-to-ground contact. When two football players collide or when a footballer hits the ground, their pads will absorb most of the damage taken. However, when a soccer player collides with either another player or the ground, there’s nothing to absorb the hit and the full damage of the collision is dealt to the player.
An unfortunate but somewhat common injury for soccer and football players is a torn ACL, which is a major tendon in the knee. According to ESPN.com, the most common sports in which ACL tears occur include soccer, basketball, football, and tennis. A torn ACL correlates back to the overuse injuries, and since soccer players don’t get sufficient rest from playing, their bones and muscles weaken and are susceptible to major injuries like a torn ACL. On the other hand, football players usually tear their ACLs from being tackled and twisting their knee in an awkward position. Even though both sports cause torn ACLs, soccer’s torn ACLs are more dangerous since it’s usually the result of a lifetime of wear and tear on the body, while in football a torn ACL usually happens in one play. Both injuries are the same and just as severe; the only difference is that ACL tears in soccer have a more long-term effect on the athlete since the bones and muscle in the legs would’ve deteriorated because of overuse injuries.
Another common injury that occurs in both sports is a concussion. According to Washington.edu, concussions make up 2-3% of all injuries in soccer and football. The head-to-head hits when making a tackle is the main reason for concussions in football, but for soccer, it gets trickier. There’s a number of ways that players can be plagued with concussions, including heading the ball, slamming heads with another player, and a player’s head hammering the ground. Causes for concussions in both sports can be tied back to how much protection is involved. Football players shock resistant helmets take some damage from a blow whether from a player or from the ground. With soccer players, there’s absolutely no protection from a soccer ball bouncing off the head at up to 100 kilometers an hour and no protection from heads slamming against the compact ground.
There are two misinformed stereotypes about soccer and football. Soccer is perceived as a sport with little to no contact and therefore no real injuries being sustained, while football is seen as a brutal sport where every tackle is hard-hitting. The reality of football is that most tackles are group tackles or wrapping the legs around someone to bring a player down. While the objective of football is to hit one another, there is an undeniable fact that football players are prepared for such contact. Even though many will claim soccer is noncontact, the fact of the matter is that it’s anything but, and has a bare minimum for protection. Soccer is a just as, if not more, dangerous sport to partake in because of the overuse of bones or muscles and virtually nonexistent protection.
