hey santos They are not having a good time in 2021. Despite having a sub-championship in Libertadores, the team was knocked out in all the competitions it played (Libertadores 2021, Sudamericana and Copa do Brasil), struggled not to fall in the Campeonato Paulista and is now in relegation to the Brazilian Championship. fights against. One of the many aspects that explained Peixe’s bad moment attracted particular attention: a knee injury in the Santos cast.
Between 2020 and 2021, eight Santos players tore the ACL (anterior cruciate ligament). They are: right-back Cadu, left-back Natan, forward Felipe Lorindo, defender Tayla, midfielders Sandri, Jobson and Carlos Sanchez, and most recently defensive midfielder Kevin Malthus.
The first injury came from Uruguayan Sanchez, who had surgery after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in Pécs’ 3-2 win over Olympia in the Copa Libertadores last October. From the professional team, he, like Jobson, has already returned to play. Sandrie is expected to return in late November and Kevin Malthus only in 2022.
For Dr. Marcus Luzzo, professor of orthopedics at Unifesp, Escola Paulista de Medicina, this does not mean that there is something specific in Santos that is causing this type of injury at the club.
“Santos’ physical preparation team, like any top team, is excellent. Today, there is a reference in Brazil Sports Medicine, so it was no one’s fault. I think it could have been the pitch of a typical sport, all of a sudden “It was bumpy, it could be an athlete’s instinct. You see one is a base player, the other has come from outside, so it has nothing to do with base”, analyzes the expert.
“So it’s the athlete’s instinct and, in my opinion, there is a coincidence of having so many in the team with this injury. But this high incidence of ACL injuries has already happened in many other teams,” he said.
What Leads to ACL Injury
The anterior cruciate ligament is essential for the full functioning of the human body. In high-performance sports, especially football, many specific movements of the sport, such as the development of soccer practice in recent years, influence such injuries to occur more and more frequently.
“An injury to the anterior cruciate ligament is very common in football because there is a lot of spinning involved. Midfield players, center forwards, who have to get the ball on their back and twist their bodies to attack, this type of injury In high-level, high-impact, high-performance sports, you ask for more structures,” Luzzo explained.
break in dream
Leon Ribeiro is an economics student at Bethesda University in Anaheim, California, and plays for the varsity team, as well as Sporting Clube California, a club that is the equivalent of the national fourth division in the United States. Last weekend, in a single move, without direct contact with an opponent, Ribeiro ruptured the ACL on his right knee.
“I was playing in midfield and I went to play a ball close to my field. When I went to turn my body, I felt a very strong crack and my knee twisted from side to side, as if it were soft. I fell to the ground screaming and that’s when I found out: I broke the ACL”, he recalls. See quote below.
Ribeiro’s injury, like many other athletes who play football at high performance, may be related, among other things, to the greater intensity that football currently requires. “15, 20 years ago, a player raised his head to throw and he had time. Today, he already has to make two-touch moves, otherwise the opponent will come with him”, explained Dr. Marcus Lujo.
Due to a knee injury, Leon Ribeiro had to return to Brazil for treatment, which was not possible in the United States. He said, “I didn’t have health insurance there, and in Brazil I can at least get treatment for free. I still want to continue chasing this dream, but at the moment I had to take a break, okay. ”
Despite the disappointment, an ACL injury, especially with advances in recovery techniques, is not an end-of-career punishment for Ribeiro or for the eight athletes who were injured in Santos. “An operated knee is not the same as a normal knee, it never will be. But he manages to do the activity at the same high level as he did before, and there are many players who prove it”, said Luzzo.
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