Injuries in adolescent female players in European football: a prospective study over one outdoor soccer season

In this prospective study, injuries in 153 adolescent female soccer players were recorded during one outdoor season (April-October). The overall injur y incidence rate was 6.8 per 1000 h soccer (games and practice) and the inc idence rate of traumatic injury 9.1 and 1.5 per 1000 player-hours in games and practice, respectively. Sixty-three players (41%) sustained 79 injuries . Sixty-six percent of the injuries were traumatic and 34% were overuse inj uries. Most of the traumatic injuries occurred during games. Eighty-nine pe rcent of the injuries were located in the lower extremities and 42% occurre d in the knee or ankle. The most frequent type of injury was ankle sprain ( 22.8%). Forty-one percent of the traumatic injuries and 56% of the ankle sp rains were re-injuries. Most of the injuries were of moderate severity (52% ), while 34% were minor and 14% were major. Most of the major injuries were traumatic such as knee ligament injuries and ankle sprains.