Injury Patterns in Academy-Level Male Youth Soccer Players: A 3-Season Prospective Cohort Study.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-2025

Identifier

DOI: 10.1097/JSM.0000000000001288

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To report injury epidemiology in youth male academy-level athletes in the United States.

DESIGN: An observational study on injury occurrences and playing time over the 2019 to 2020, 2020 to 2021, and 2021 to 2022 soccer seasons.

SETTING: Data collected from a single midwestern soccer academy in the United States in partnership with a tertiary care level I pediatric heath institution.

PATIENTS: All male youth athletes to have enrolled and participated in the developmental academy during any of the 3 studied seasons.

INTERVENTIONS: None. This was an observational study.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Injury rate (incidence per 1000 playing hours), type, location, mechanism (noncontact vs contact), severity, and mode of play (match vs training) in which the injury was sustained.

RESULTS: Overall rate of injury was 3.64 per 1000 h exposure. Injuries of moderate severity (8-28 days of missed playing time) were most common. When stratified by team, injury rates were highest in the U15 (5.15/1000 h) and lowest in the U12 (0.87/1000 h). Most injuries involved muscles of the lower extremities.

CONCLUSIONS: Among male youth academy-level soccer athletes in the United States, older players tended to sustain injuries at a higher rate than younger. The lower extremity was the most common injury location, and muscle injuries and most common type. Concussions remain common in this population, accounting for nearly a 10th of all athletic injuries.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Injury epidemiology data from this study add to the growing worldwide pool of data from youth, male, academy-level soccer athletes that will augment development of injury prevention interventions.

Journal Title

Clinical journal of sport medicine : official journal of the Canadian Academy of Sport Medicine

Volume

35

Issue

4

First Page

482

Last Page

488

MeSH Keywords

Humans; Soccer; Male; Adolescent; Prospective Studies; Athletic Injuries; Incidence; Child; United States

PubMed ID

39745278

Keywords

United States; academy-level; injury epidemiology; male; soccer; youth

Link to Full Text
Library Record

Share

COinS