Women’s ACL injuries
After finishing the Step by Step short documentary series that Arsenal Women’s player Beth Mead and Vivianne Miedema starred in, I began to do a bit more research into ACL injuries in women’s football and was extremely surprised by what I found. I knew it was becoming more common and not just in women footballer’s but women athlete’s who are playing contact sport and it seems to have become somewhat of an epidemic, but how can we help prevent these types of injures for the future of women’s sport?
Watching the last two episodes of the Step by step series was very eye-opening and what was somewhat of an unknown cause has had a huge light shone on the situation and thanks to our Arsenal Women, and their hard journeys back to full fitness, it seems to be a big talking point across the world and finally feels like there’s progress being made.
Women haven’t been brought up in the academy until recent times, not in the same way as most of the professional men have, with women’s football only becoming what people would call “professional” about 15 years ago and with that comes a lot of catching up, with young women going straight into professional careers without all the strengthening and conditioning that the men are brought up with. This is obviously may be a huge part of why women are more likely to have these type of injuries.
With 42 ACL’s last season in European football and up to 27 Women missing out on this years FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023, co-hosted by Australia & New Zealand, it starts to become a serious worry and with the type of workload these women are now having to face, it only makes sense that these injuries are becoming more common. But how do we try prevent these types of injuries before they occur?
Well, from the research I’ve done, it’s a lot of what I said above. Women haven’t until recently had the same opportunities as the men have and the science behind everything isn’t as up to date as what the men’s is. Injuries are a part of football and that’s just how it is but as the women’s game has become more popular and more challenging, these types of matters need to be pushed so that we don’t see what we saw last season at Arsenal.
At the end of the final episode of Step by Step, Viv got to sit down with Arsenal Women’s academy medical head of staff and was assured that the club were making progress in changes in the way the academy girls trained and built themselves up and would be something that would hopefully, with time, be able to prevent ACL’s for the girls of the future.
Right now, there’s no simple fix, but with the right people working hard to understand and change this for the next generation is a massive thing for women’s football, and without our Arsenal women going through what they did last season, I don’t know if this issue would have been pushed as hard as it has.
If you haven’t watched it yet, I highly recommend the documentary. It’s raw and real and has already made a huge impact on and off the pitch.
What’s your thoughts Gooners?
Daisy Mae
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Brilliant watch but my concern is whether the world of football outside of Arsenal WFC really cares about what they perceive to be a woman’s injury? There have been no sign that any other club affected by this has taken the same steps.
Beth and Viv were injured a year ago and, in all honesty, where are we and how far have we come?
Arsenal are CERTAINLY not the only team affected…..
https://sport.optus.com.au/news/womens/os57327/why-have-more-than-25-top-womens-footballers-torn-their-acls-in-the-last-12-months