Just days before the World Cup starts and Rio Ferdinand, Manchester United and England captain, has been ruled out of the competition after sustaining a knee ligament injury during training.
A number of people are superstitious about the reasons for the injury, chalking it up to bad luck. Some say that after Ferdinand’s injuries all season mean that this kind of thing was bound to happen to the United champion, while others feel that this situation is the result of an injury jinx as old as the game itself, that dictates that players get injured close to major finals games.
Personally, I would like to think that the reason for a rapid loss of players in the official England jersey when it comes time to compete is more related to the intensity of the numerous games that England and other players in the Premier League face.
If you are playing for a top side, who have qualified for Europe, then you can expect to participating in four competitions each season. These include The Premier League, The Champions League or Europa Cup, The FA Cup and the Carling Cup. This list doesn’t include any of the pre- and post-season games that occur in a season, or the number of pre-season friendlies in which a team can participate.
As well as playing a lot of games, England plays games with a high degree of intensity. England is unique in that it plays games at an intensity and speed which is injury inducing. Even accounting for squad rotation and players not playing in FA Cup or Carling Cup ties, many top players will be playing 40-50 very tough games a season, not to mention training.
Players suffer under the weight of constant physical stress. With so much time spent playing, it should be more surprising when a player doesn’t get injured.
For proof, look no further than England’s National team. Rio Ferdinand, Bobby Zamora, Owen Hargreaves, and Michael Owen all suffered injuries this year, leaving the squad, which originally had 30 men insanely short staffed. Wolcott injured a shoulder against Stroke in 2008, leading Capello to feel that he was lacking as a player.
Then of course we look at those players who are fit A specialist trainer helps Ledley King to keep his knees in working order. David James, Glen Johnson, Joe Cole, Ashley Cole, Steven Gerrard, Aaron Lennon and most worryingly of all Wayne Rooney have all recently recovered from injury. People like Gareth Barry will be missing the first game of the World Cup finals against the United States. Soccer hero David Beckham finally had to call it quits after an Achilles injury pushed him out of the playing squad for the finals.
It’s an odd quirk of fate that our love of the game in England, our thirst and desire for big games at a quicker pace, more often, is seemingly at odds with the ability to produce that which almost all England fans craves more than anything else: A second World Cup winning team.
