Are young footballers playing too often?
As the amount of football played continues to increase, so do the minutes for players under 23. But is playing so many games healthy at such a young age?
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Football players under 23 are racking up a record number of minutes on the pitch at elite level.
00:06They're having more influence on matches than ever.
00:09But is this actually dangerous for their development?
00:11And could injuries lead to their careers being cut short?
00:19Hello and welcome to Football Now.
00:21Nowadays in elite football, young stars under the age of 23 are dominating the line-ups of the world's best teams.
00:29Jude Bellingham, Lamine Yamal, Bakayo Saka and Julian Alvarez are just some of the young players who've risen to prominence over the last couple of seasons.
00:39Now of course, in footballing terms, being 23 years old actually isn't that young.
00:44But there's a growing concern that playing too many matches could lead to more injuries later in their careers.
00:51So just how much does the male body change in those early key years and how important is it to manage the game time of young players?
00:59There's lots of changes physically, hormonally and even in terms of their playing and training environment during that period.
01:06I think obviously as the male evolves over those years, his testosterone levels increase.
01:11That obviously leads to a big change in his lean muscle mass.
01:14The growth spurts can be quite substantial during that period but also hard to predict.
01:18Everyone's kind of on their own individual journey.
01:20During adolescence, the end of the bones, the FSCL plates are still open as they're growing.
01:24And where the muscle attaches or where the tendon attaches to the bone is also still open.
01:28So the profile of injury they get is slightly different in those late teenage years or early teenage years versus into early adulthood.
01:34When those areas fuse and the stress goes through more the bone and more the muscular tendon structure as a result.
01:38So they get bigger, they get heavier, they get more mass and their movement quality doesn't always match those physical developments.
01:45In the last decade, we've seen a dramatic increase in the number of minutes footballers are playing across the board.
01:51But compared to 10 years ago, football squads are made up of more young players than ever before.
01:56In 2013-14, footballers under 23 playing for the league champions Manchester City, Atletico Madrid, Juventus, Bayern Munich and PSG
02:06played a combined total of 29,408 minutes.
02:11Ten years later, there has been a 55.8% increase, rising to 52,658.
02:18One of the biggest things is I think the game is getting quicker, the speed of the game is quicker.
02:22And the need for any successful team, you have to have speed in your team, you have to have energy,
02:28you have to have players that are willing to make forward runs, running behind the back line.
02:33So I think a big thing you get with younger players is you get real energy.
02:38And also they haven't had a career of getting scars along the way in terms of losses and relegations or losing a cup final.
02:48So there's a real bravery with young players, there's a fearlessness.
02:51And I think that's something that's really valuable with young players coming through.
02:55They've just never experienced any of that, so there's a real fearlessness about their approach.
03:01For prominent players, schedules have become relentless.
03:04Real Madrid and England midfielder Jude Bellingham has an enviable trophy cabinet by the age of 21,
03:10but the amount of games he's played in the last two years have been insurmountable.
03:14Between August 2022 and 2024, he played 105 games for club and country,
03:19racking up a total of 9,026 minutes on the pitch.
03:23Again, let's look back a decade to Germany's Mario Goethe, a creative midfielder in a similar role to Bellingham.
03:29Our research showed that in like-for-like competitions, Goethe was actually involved in five more games in the same time frame.
03:36However, the data showed that he played just 7,052 minutes in 110 games,
03:41which suggests that his minutes on the pitch were managed closely by the club.
03:45Now 32 years old, Goethe is still playing highly competitive football in the Bundesliga.
03:50Could Bellingham's significant amount of extra minutes so early on in his career compromise his career longevity?
03:56You can hypothesize both ways.
03:58Definitely you can see that if you have a certain amount of mental and physical capacity and you start using it earlier in life,
04:04that that might have a shelf life and lead to earlier ends in careers.
04:07I think a lot of that will depend not on the athlete's physical ability,
04:10but the injuries they pick up during that early transition phase, that if they can navigate that window,
04:14that we might find if you get to a certain age relatively healthy, it has no impact on your career.
04:18If you get to a certain age and you've picked up some big injuries, does that start to curtail things?
04:23But definitely I think if you can get to a certain point in your career, 23, 4, 5, where you've navigated that journey relatively successful,
04:29I wouldn't necessarily think that you're going to run into trouble then later in life because you started at 17 or started at 18.
04:35So whose responsibility is this and where does the duty of care lie?
04:40As players regularly feature for their squads, there comes with that a more physical and mental pressure.
04:46And it's down to the managerial teams to manage the footballers' time on and off the pitch.
04:51So how difficult is it to get that balance right between letting a young player develop and also making sure it isn't too much too soon?
04:59It's everything. It's the role, the responsibility of an under-20 coach or a second-team coach.
05:05At both club and national team level, the role is to prepare players to play for the first team.
05:11Obviously your relationship with the fitness coaches and the performance staff are important to help manage players.
05:17But look, in the end, you still have to use your own eyes and your own feeling and your relationship with the player to understand when's the best time to give him his debut.
05:27You want to set him up to be successful. And then obviously seeing him in training, how he performs, his mentality, his energy.
05:34These are all the indications where you make your decisions on when to bring him on and how long to play him for and when to rest him.
05:41The minutes being handed to young footballers is growing with every season.
05:45But there are preventative measures in place to ensure they aren't at higher risk of injuries later in their careers.
05:52Let us know if you think more could be done using the hashtag FootballNowYoungTalents.
05:57That's all we've got time for here from the Aspartar Hospital in Doha. We'll see you next time. Bye for now.