Looking at Injuries.

The recent spate of General Discussion topics on abundances of injuries for certain users, combined to my own general lack of overwhelming injury problems and observations of some puzzling and interesting injury tendencies and training practices and match occurances at my own club have piqued my interest and had me looking at this issue with some more attention recently. Unfortunately my attention has not yet reached the level where I have mountains of tested data and solid conclusions but I do have some perhaps interesting points to bring up for attention and discussion. These could well be wrong considering the somewhat roughshod and untested approach I have taken, but some interesting points serving as a basis for further investigation is a sound starting point for a good discussion I hope.

I would categorise injuries into four distinct types from what I have seen, ignoring things like food poisoning or flu and viruses etc. Those four distinct types are Training Ground Accidents such as collisions and knocks and bumps; Training Ground Overworking or Overexertion such as strains and pulls and tears; In-Match Accidents (or Contact) such as knocks and bumps etc. and In-Match Overexertion or Overworking such as again strains and tears and pulls and twists etc.

Of these four types of injuries I think it is fair to say that Training Ground and In-Match bumps are very possibly identical in their premise or cause, likewise Training Ground and In-Match Overexertions are likely to be identical in their premise or cause. The question I have been asking recently is this one: Is there any correlation between player attributes, match/training contexts and the injuries sustained and indeed their rate or regularity of being sustained? My initial conclusions are promising and there does seem to be significant correlations between actions, attributes, conditions and injuries. In short my observations are telling me that there is a reasonably complex model underlying player actions that determines the likelyhood and type of injuries. At this time I should point out that I utilise Maximum Training Intensity schedules for all of my players and employ squad rotation. With the maximum quality Fitness Coaches and maximum quality Physios and maximum quality Training Facilities I see very little tendency towards training injuries of any kind that hints towards me overworking players.

The first and most obvious and easilly reproduced and surely widely accepted observation is that In-Match 50-50s are dangerous and are a large source of instantly understandable injuries. Likewise knocks in Training are also understandable and fairly obvious. I have Yuri Zhirkov retrained for Left Back who in the last 18 months has been injured 4 times in training from fairly innocuous bumps and bruises and cuts, all very short term injuries. Likewise Nemanja Vidic is a major culprit in my side for receiving In-Match 5 day injuries in the shape of bruises and concussions. Added to this list is Wayne Rooney, retrained as a Central Midfielder who has a habit of receiving damaged elbows and bruised ribs and the like, again all short term injuries that stem from physical contact and the rough and tumble of a contact sport.

Nemanja Vidic, Yuri Zhirkov and Wayne Rooney are all Aggressive and Brave players with a signficant physical element to their game, pace, strength, workrate, and high Determination. Each also has mediocre or slightly above average Decision making, 15 to 16. Each player also has a relatively high rate of injuries for my team but rarely receive a bad injury and usually simply miss the next match or two. The injury regularity and injury types received by these players point towards both a logical basis for their injuries and a reasonable quantity and type of injuries for these specific players. There is the occasional "bad-one" but nothing unexpected and certainly not with a regularity and severity that points to a puzzle regarding these players. These are solid players that play a tough game and take the knocks, In-Training and In-Match.

The conclusion is both simple and obvious. Aggressive and Brave and Physical players told to play aggressively and physically are going to dish-out and receive knocks and bumps and cuts and dislocations both in-match and in-training. If you can observe this in the 2-D match replay as well as in the injury list of your players, as I do, then you will show my observations to be reasonable rather than specific to my own save and I would appreciate any kind of feedback on this point.

Before I move onto the other injury type I wish to explore the 50-50 or contact injury a little further, as in my experience it accounts for a significant volumne and occasionally a significant severity of injuries. From what I have seen contact injuries are by far the most common type of injury in general terms across an entire squad. My hypothesis, based on my observation of activities and my scanning and evaluating of the data presented in my own save is that each contact between players carries with it the risk of injury, this likelyhood of injury is reduced by high Strength and Balance and is further magnified by Injury-Proneness. This is untested but follows directly from my observations of match activity and my evaluation of attributes of players involved. The higher the aggression, bravery, workrate etc. of players given instructions and positions that provoke physical involvement the higher the risk of receiving a contact injury. The higher the Strength, Balance and the lower the injury-proneness the less likely that player is to receive an injury from contact.

There is a second, vital, and quite hypothetical aspect to contact injuries that I will detail after I have explored the second major type of injury, the type most difficult to comprehend in its cause and very often the most severe; the Overexertion or Overworking injury.

The Overexertion injury is the non-contact injury where a player sprints after a ball and collapses in a heap having torn a calf muscle, or when a player commits to a dribble or a pass or a tackle and stops suddenly with a ruptured cruciate. These are usually rare and usually bad. What is puzzling about these types of injury is that A: they do not seem to be random and evenly distributed and B: they do not seem to follow any obvious Injury-Proneness trend.

I have Rio Ferdinand (injury-proneness 5, 90 matches in 3 seasons, 3 weeks injured), Cristiano Ronaldo (injury-proneness 5, 84 matches in 3 seasons, 45 weeks injured) and Lionel Messi (injury-proneness 14!, 112 matches in 3 seasons, 25 weeks injured). This data alone is intriguing for at the very least there is some factor provoking a vast amount of injuries in Cristiano Ronaldo way beyond his injury-proneness and Strength/Balance attributes. It could quite easilly be that my entire prior hypothesis is completely incorrect, but there is another major factor in this discrepancy of data, and that is the type of injuries Ronaldo is sustaining.

Lionel Messi is injury prone and not very strong. His injuries are predominatly contact injuries of bruises, gashes, cuts, and a few dead legs. He has precisely one strain and one tear on his rather large injury list with the rest being bangs and knocks from contact. Cristiano Ronaldo is not injury-prone and is stronger than Messi and he has exactly one blatant contact injury. The rest are all muscle tears, joint twists and ligament strains. If we took only direct contact injuries into the equation then Cristiano Ronaldo would be injured as often as Ferdinand and Messi would be far ahead of the rest in physio table time. This is not the case. For some reason Lionel Messi is getting kicked about and suffering for it, but receiving no serious injuries through Over-exertion. Cristiano Ronaldo on the other hand is getting kicked around and is taking it, but is being crippled by serious muscle tears, joint twists and ligament damage.

It is worth repeating this observation. Cristiano Ronaldo does not have a high injury-prone rating, he has relatively high Strength and high Balance and he is not receiving a lot of contact injuries, whereas Lionel Messi does have a high injury-prone attribute, low strength and a slightly lower balance and is receiving plenty of contact injuries. This fits perfectly with my above hypothesis that contact injuries are ever present in all types of contact and are reduced by Strength, Balance and low Injury-Proneness.

The puzzle here is why Messi is not receiving tears, pulls, strains, twists and ligament damage whereas Ronaldo is being crippled by these. Why indeed is Rio Ferdinand with his equivelant Strength, close Balance and equivelant Injury Proneness to Ronaldo not also crippled by tears, pulls, strains, twists and ligament damage? The answer to this comes in two parts, and I think it is highly fascinating.

First of all, Cristiano Ronaldo does not have the Agility to match his acceleration and dribbling. His game is based around speed, dribbling and outmanouvering the opponent but he is rather low in agility. His body cannot cope in terms of agility with the stress placed on it by his acceleration and dribbling. If this is true, and it certainly answers the questions posed, then it is quite a revelation in my opinion. I have retrained Ronaldo as a striker where he is regularly placed into tight situations where his dribbling, acceleration and agility are key. He regularly utilises and attempts move requiring high acceleration, agility and dribbling but his agility is low. Thus he is pulling muscles, twisting joints and damaging ligaments on a regular basis. This is entireally logical. Lionel Messi on the other hand is incredibly agile and his agility can cash the cheques that his acceleration and dribbling write. Ronaldo cannot do this.

Secondly, and this ties Rio Ferdinand's injury context in with the above, is that Ferdinand and Messi have significantly higher Anticipation and better Decisions than Ronaldo. Ronaldo is forced, by his lack of Anticipation, to use his Acceleration and Dribbling to get out of tight spots and defeat the opponent. Ferdinand and Messi have the ability to read the game and minimise their demands on their own acceleration, agility and dribbling. Ferdinand puts himself in the right places, sees the game a yard ahead of most, and minimises the physical demands on his body. Messi does not need to minimise the demands on his agility but can also see the game better than Ronaldo and can sidestep opponents without requiring vast physical demands on his body. He can anticipate tackles and dribble past them without over-exerting himself. Again Ronaldo lacks this ability. Ronaldo is incredibly low in Anticipation and is forced to his use his acceleration, agility and technical ability to do just about anything but his agility is the weak link in this chain and it is a physical attribute, thus Ronaldo continually over-exerts himself and suffers from Over-exertion injuries on a regular basis.

The final point I wish to make, the hypothetical aspect of contact injuries, is that Contact Injuries can be compounded by Over-exertion injuries, or perhaps more accurately that players seemingly impervious to Contact injuries but prone to Over-exertion injuries that are hit by contact on a regular basis are much more likely to suffer from severe Over-exertion injuries such as cruciates or ligament problems. If you turn too fast for your knee to cope and are then hit by a train then your Contact Injury "immunity" is irrelevant, or if you turn enough to reach the limit of your agility but not exceed it, and are then hit by a train, you will receive an Over-exertion injury. This is just a hypothesis, but the quantity of Over-exertion injuries does seem to increase as a player prone to Over-exertion is placed in regular positions of high contact.

If you have read this far then thanks, and I hope to read your feedback.

Proud to say i've read thru this block of very well written text! Very intriguing thought there, SFraser. Is this a brand new game or a save into a couple of season? Because i was wondering if you factor age in.

Proud to say i've read thru this block of very well written text! Very intriguing thought there, SFraser. Is this a brand new game or a save into a couple of season? Because i was wondering if you factor age in.

Thanks for reading it the whole way through and I am glad that you find it interesting, it is something I have concluded recently and it is also an interesting avenue of exploration for myself. I look forward to confirming or denying these conclusions in future games.

As for the age issue, well straight away I thought it should be a factor as logic would dictate it is a factor, but Rio Ferdinand is 6 years older than Ronaldo and in my save (3rd season since game creation) is now 32. This implies that age is not a direct factor in the issue of injuries.

Peronally, and since I have only just come to these conclusions and done no further testing, I would view Injury Prone-ness, Strength and Balance as the key factors in "contact" injuries and Agility as the key factor in physical Over-exertion injuries. Ofcourse tactics, opponents, pitch conditions all play a role in determining the proximity to other players but these attributes determine the likelyhood of injuries when contact is made, or a move is attempted. I find it logical atleast, but others may shed some light. It is quite possible that the inter-relationship of physical attributes has a greater bearing on "over-exertion" injuries than I have given credit for, and this should certainly be kept in mind.

As usual Sfraser, another gread thread by you again. Though lengthy ha.

Interesting observations I must add which given the points you have stated, do not make them sound illogical at any case.

Although I do agree on the attributes you have identified with that result in the different type of injuries : Injury Prone, Strength, Balance.

I am not so convinced by agility though, although I do stand to be corrected on that at any time.

In any case, I think you must add Bravery as a part in injuries occurring during matches. The forums here do show that there are people who specifically "hard tackle" low bravery players to get them off the ball. And I am sure you have noticed through your scout and coach reports on the weaknesses of players with a low bravery rating. I believe the reports tend to go along the lines of "Will do help his team by avoiding challenges" or something similar. A real life incident that stuck to my mind was during the World Cup 2002 England vs Brazil match, where David Beckham jumped to avoid a challenge from Roberto Carlos thus resulting in a goal in the subsequent Brazilian attack.

Therefore, I think you might want to note the bravery rating of the players you mentioned and perhaps identify if there is any correlation between Bravery and Injuries.

Aggression and Bravery both have a large role to play in actually going in for a "50-50" or involving the player in any challenge he has the opportunity to withdraw from. I did make a slight mention of this in my post but it is definately worth repeating. Aggression is in my opinion a highly powerful attribute for determining behaviour and it would appear to be closely linked to bravery when a player is deciding upon a possible challenge action that has several seconds in which the player can decide to involve himself. I find these two attributes to be obvious in a high ball in the midfield area, where a player will kind of "jiggle" around before deciding to commit to the tackle or withdraw, although this may be a quirk of the match engine. Certainly both aggression and bravery are highly important in the context of injuries, but they tend to limit themselves to the "contact" injury type.

As for the Agility injury issue, it is quite understandable to have reservations as I do not think this has been raised before. While it is logical and accounts superficially for certain injury types, it has never been mentioned and is understandably difficult to accept. This is where I would ask for the perceptions of others, so that I do not have to involve myself in what I find a tedious quantity of testing, to determine the accuracy of what I consider currently to be a functional involvement of attributes in injuries.

The length is rather frustrating, but there was a lot to get through I don't think I wasted much, hopefully.

I don't have FM at hand, but doesn't Natural Fitness mitigate the negative affects of aging?

So, a player who has low Natural Fitness will hit 30 and already be declining to some degree, thus not as able-bodied as previously. Compared with a player who has high Natural Fitness, who will feel the affects of aging later in their career.

I think it is also imperative that injured players are rested thoroughly and slowly introduced to full-speed competitive football. Especially in the rugged EPL. I routinely brought back players when they hit 95+% and foolishly started them. They would be injured with a single robust challenge. While it can be impossible to wait until they are back to 100%, they should be introduced late in games already won or - if they are unlikely to complain - in reserve games which are not as competitive or physical.

I don't find the "agility" explanation at all adequate. Ronaldo's agility is 16. That's really high. Furthermore, he hardly has low decisions or anticipation. Both are 13, well above average.

Best way to test- extremes! Four players, all wingers, two AML, two AMR. Exactly the same in every way br the control attributes, which should be set at 1 or 20. After a few seasons, you could get "definitive" results. Repeating the test increases reliability.

Fascinating analysis, provisional though it is. Certainly cries out for rigorous testing as SCIAG says. Pragmatically, we need to tailor fitness (and other) training regimes to take these factors into account, and consider individual player instructions such as tackling and closing down. Hope this thread continues to develop.

Fascinating read SFraser

I have myself at one stage looked thorougly in to the whole injury thing (wrote a couple of posts about it as well)

Maybe my findings can spur on your thoughts

Firstly I started reading some official uefa reports on injuries to modern day pro-players (at the time I was on mission to prove FM was unrealistic in terms of injuries)

Shocklingly the uefa report states that the average amount of injuries for a EPL team is 55 per season and each player will average 3 minor/medium injuries a season and one major every 3 seasons - as a result the associated article also stated that a 25 man squad would be considered the min required today.

I did find when looking at the injury table in the DB that some of the frequency occurences of specific injuries are un-realistic for example a player is as likely to break an arm as he is of getting the common cold (something like that) etc

Also re training injuries I found that some of the "best" coaches do have a very high stat called hardness of training of 18-20 which states "coach will conduct prolonged and hard training sessions" (something like that) - which I found also increased the amount of training injuries

Finally I also - like you - found that the amount and type of match injuries would relate to how you played the players so for example asking team to pass ball to head of a target man with a low heading/jumping/strengt stat would see him getting many injuries/knocks or if a players plays in an unnatural position would also get more injuries.

Also how you play the player will determine how the opposition will play against him, so if you have a very fast dribbler who loves to showboat (beat man repeatedly) like ronaldo, chances are AI manager will tell his players to not hold back when tackling him to neutralise him from the game - as a result he will also get more injuries than your DC.

Two more things is also that the players condition in the match affects all his stats physical as well as mental - not sure of the formula used by match engine, but it is reasonable to presume that a player on 75% condition gets 25% knocked of his stats.

Finally I also found that players get injuries in same was a airplanes crash ie 9-% of all airplane crashes happens in first or last 20 min of journey - same way on my test I found that more than 70% of match injuries happened in the first 20 or last 20 min of games.

Just my thoughts on some findings I did on test long time ago

"more than 70% of match injuries happened in the first 20 or last 20 min of games"

So don't use all your subs on 60 minutes!!

Great stuff MM!.

Interesting information there. The "Hardness of Training" is a good spot. I knew it existed but didn't factor it into training injury likelyhood.

In my save I have noticed a clear correlation between injury types, player playing styles and certain key attributes. I do not have the time to do rigorous testing (and this testing would require control of the match environment as well as player attributes) but I am quite certain that specific injury types work in a way similar to what I described in my first post, simply because the relationship between playstyle and player behaviour and injury types is so clear in my players injury history.

A few of these relationships are pretty obvious and near unarguable but some of them are puzzling and much more hypothetical. I don't wish to rewrite my original post but I do wish to clarify a few points so that those reading this thread can confirm or deny my observations.

My observations in general are like this:

- Aggressive, Brave, Strong, Slow : Bumps, bruises, cuts, elbow/shoulder/head/rib injuries.

- Pacey, Low Anticipation running onto through balls : Leg muscle tears, strains, pulls.

- High Anticipation, high agility "Fast Striker" dribbler types : Bumps, bruises, cuts, elbow/shoulder/head/rib injuries.

- Low Anticipation, low agility "Fast Striker" dribbler types : Joint twists, sprains, dislocations, ligament damage.

As I said before I think that there are 2 types of injury. One is how "prone" an individual is to taking knocks from other players and the other which has nothing to with the injury-prone attribute is related to the level of "stress" of certain physical attributes, for example maintaining or utilising maximum Pace for a period of time or playing at the limit of Agility for a period of time.

My personal opinion would be that Physical Attributes carry some form of injury risk when utilised at their maximum level. If a player with 16 acceleration and 16 pace has low anticipation and is chasing through balls all game then he is working that 16 acceleration and 16 pace to its maximum and is at increased risk of tearing a muscle. If he has high anticipation then he is working those limits much less and has a lower risk of that kind of injury. With high anticipation he doesn't need to exert his physical limits so much to achieve the same result.

I have a fullback with 18 aggression, bravery and workrate. He also has 16 anticipation, decisions, positioning, acceleration, jumping and pace. My playstyle and level of football means he is constantly working in both defence and attack, chasing top level wingers and battling with top level strikers while also running onto throughballs and providing crosses down the flanks. This guy has the full range of injuries in his injury list, apart from those related to dribbling and turning/twisting. He has bruises and cuts and broken ribs, muscle tears and pulls and strains and even a slipped disc. His injury-prone attribute is 8, which is low, but his injury list is pretty long and colourful.

My Pacey Sweeper-Centreback with anticipation 19, positioning 19, injury-prone 5 does not have any of these injuries, whereas my Aggressive Stopper-Centreback of injury-prone 8 has knocks and bumps and broken rib style injuries only.

This would be consistent with injuries that are related to physical exertion. My anticipation 19, positioning 19 sweeper is simply mopping up and rarely exerting himself. My stopper is constantly trying to win the first ball and is close contact with opponents but is not chasing them, he is marking them and tackling them or outjumping them. My fullback is exerting himself in every way, sprinting up and down the flanks, challenging for balls down the outside of my sweeper, and clearing the back post with headers. He is getting every type of injury except the "dribble" injury types.

It's a bit of a cop-out if I don't properly test this but to test it properly means I will have to watch test-seasons on a game by game basis to make sure that players are behaving in particular ways to properly analyse their injuries. Instead I am asking if others would like to detail their own experiences of injury types, player attributes and in-match activities. Would anyone like to provide a short list of players, injuries, attributes and in-match activities?

good read sfraser but id ave to agree with SCIAG's comment about ronaldo's agility....but with all dis is there any sloution to the 2nd type of injury u mention??and im not sure about dis but was there not a patch released aimed at reducing injuries??

is there any sloution to the 2nd type of injury u mention?

That is very much the question I am trying to answer with this thread. The injuries involving twists, tears, sprains and general join and muscle injuries do not conform to injury proneness nor to any degree of contact. The only sense that their patterns make, to me, is when you take into account the physical factors involved in certain moves and the difference in physical values, or the length of time a player spends playing at the limit of those physical values.

I don't find the "agility" explanation at all adequate. Ronaldo's agility is 16. That's really high. Furthermore, he hardly has low decisions or anticipation. Both are 13, well above average.

Though these stats are 'not bad', they are both infact relatively low for the level competition that Ronaldo is playing in. 13 is NOT good for a World class / Premiership player. Equally so, SFraser didnt comment that 16 is low, he merely stated that 16 is far below the corresponding skills that use Agility, ie his pace, acceleration, dribbling etc etc. It would indicate that whilst Ronaldo is very good on the ball, he has a tendancy to 'run into' other players..... and lets be fair, in real life, he does this all the time.

Its this 'running into' players that gets him his injuries, that and the fact that everone tries to hack him down!

LAM

Low Anticipation for competition level and low Agility for current speed and dribble difficulty is a recipe for being tackled hard and getting hurt.

As I said before it is the injury-prone attribute that determines the likelyhood of receiving an injury when colliding with another player, but the mechanics for determing injuries when moving at speed or dribbling with the ball are completely different. Anticipation plays a big role in serious injuries compared to simple bumps and bruises and knocks. In FM09 when you do not see the tackle coming, or you get tackled mid-dribble when moving fast or with low agility, then you have a huge risk of receiving a serious leg injury, whether muscle, bone or ligament damage.

I am not sure of the exact mechanics of a non-contact, no-ball sprint injury such as a torn hamstring when chasing a through ball but I suspect it has to do with the relationship between physical attributes and fitness/condition.

When a player goes up for a header or slides in for a tackle or tries to muscle someone else off the ball or otherwise makes contact with a player that was expected then it is the injury-prone attribute that determines the likelyhood of receiving an injury, but these injuries are invariably minor. I cannot tell you the likelyhood of injury per injury-prone rating but I can tell you to view every contact with an injury-prone player as a likely injury, and the injury received will be minor.

The above is true in all cases where the player in question Anticipates the contact. Where the player does not Anticipate the contact comes the risk of an injury of immense severity and it has nothing to do with injury-proneness.

In my save I have both Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi in my side. I have retrained them both so that they can both play on each Wing, or both play upfront depending on the match. Depending on the opponent Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo will play as either a Winger or a Forward when fit. Infact Ronaldo and Messi is a quite brilliant "Big man - little man" combination.

Lionel Messi is incredibly sharp minded, he is fast and agile, he is physically weak and injury-prone. Lionel Messi receives a significant quantity of minor injuries, bumps and bruises and concussions etc. but very rarely receives a serious injury. Cristiano Ronaldo is by comparison quite dull mentally, he is fast and not so agile and is physically strong and is very much not injury-prone. Ronaldo receives almost no minor injuries but receives the highest quantity of serious injuries in my squad, while having the lowest Anticipation on average in my first team.

The conclusion is clear. If you are injury prone then elbows to the head hurt you badly, knees to the thigh hurt you badly, shoulder charges hurt you. If you are injury prone then any contact with another player is quite possibly going to result in an injury. If you have low Anticipation and play a high speed game then failure to anticipate a tackle is going to break your leg or ankle, or is going to rip the ligaments of your joints, or tear the muscles of your leg.

High anticipation players can avoid or minimise the damage of a hard tackle and leave the injury question up to the injury-proneness of simple physical contact. Low anticipation players are going to get hurt bad in the first contact. Ofcourse if you cannot catch the guy then the point is moot.

To simplify the point it is this:

Anticipation determines the ability to avoid or minimise the damage from strong tackles coming from bad angles. An un-anticipated tackle is the most harmful tackle in the game to any player, irrespective of whether the tackle is fair or not or the player is injury-prone or not. Injuries from this situation are almost always bad injuries.

Injury-prone determines the likelyhood of recieving a minor injury from an anticipated collision. The player may avoid a broken ankle from a tackle from behind but recieve a dead leg from the contact because of the high injury-prone attribute.

Players with low injury-prone attribute and high anticipation very rarely get injured unless there is some large discrepancy in physical attributes.