Occurrence and type of sports injuries in elite young Brazilian soccer players

Abstract

Introduction: The aim of this study was to analyze the injuries affected in young soccer athletes of high performance categories, under (U)-11, U-13, U-15, U-17 and U-20 years and the associations between the variables related the injuries. Material and method: Data were collected from medical records of the medical department of 143 injured athletes belonging to a club in the first division of the Brazilian Championship. The young athletes were evaluated in the following categories: under (U)-11,n = 30 (10.45 ±0.5 years), U-13, n = 34 (12.15 ±0.3 years) U-15,n = 23 (14.56 ±0.4 years), U-17, n = 24 (16.52 ± 0.5 years), U-20, n = 32 (18.24 ± 0.6 years). Data collection was conducted from January 2014 to November 2014 (11 months). The data were analyzed and classified according to the categories and the lesions identified as per the recommendations of the study group in injury FIFA Medical Assessment and Research Centre. Results: The results showed that there was a total of 200 lesions in all categories, the teams U-15, U-17, U-20 stood out with the greatest occurrences of injuries (p<0.05) and index of injuries (p<0.05). The Pearson correlation test showed a positive and significant coefficient of correlation (r = 0.879; p < 0.05) between index of injuries and hours of game. Conclusions: It was observed that the occurrence and characteristics of lesions of young soccer players in different categories are higher according to the increasing number of games and that the older groups demonstrate a greater number of lesions more similar to those in adults.