by One of them is about thirty years old and has most of a glorious career behind him. The other is only 19 years old and there is much more to come. Two players at different points in their lives, with different hopes and ambitions, but both have been hit by the same dreaded diagnosis: a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).
For Neymar and Gavi, there is no telling if life will be the same once they have recovered. Both are at the beginning of a long road: Neymar had surgery earlier this month and Gavi, the talented Spanish midfielder, will do the same in the coming days.
It is perhaps the most feared injury in football, and Neymar and Gavi are far from the only elite stars to have felt that pain this season. In the Premier League, Aston Villa’s Emi Buendia and Tyrone Mings, Arsenal’s Jurrien Timber and Chelsea’s Wesley Fofana have suffered the same setback in recent months.
There are many others throughout Europe. And within women’s soccer, where research shows that female athletes are up to six times more likely to suffer a non-contact ACL injury than their male counterparts, the number of serious knee injuries is a source of constant distress and distress.
There is currently no obvious solution to the problem. But that doesn’t mean a solution will never be found and, in Scotland, there is a potential ray of hope, which comes in the form of a small ball bearing.
The idea belongs to Knox Chate, an independent product developer based in Edinburgh. Chate’s expertise is in designing sports shoes, rather than football boots, but for the past four years he has been working on a product that he believes could reduce the risk of serious injuries, including anterior cruciate ligaments. , in a variety of sports.
Chate’s design is known as an “anti-seize pin,” and it is actually a pin that has a ball bearing on the end, much like a pen but larger. The goal is to reduce “rotational traction,” allowing for smoother changes of direction and reducing the risk of studs getting caught in the turf, which is a leading cause of serious injuries.
Studies have found that a high level of rotational traction is associated with a significant increase in the risk of lower extremity injuries, especially the anterior cruciate ligament. Chate’s goal has been to reduce that pull without compromising the fundamental purpose of the bolt.
Clearly, if all the studs on the sole of your boot had ball bearings, you would slide around the field. Chate’s recommendation, therefore, is that only three anti-grip studs be used at a time, on the areas of the foot that experience the most pressure when an athlete changes direction (one at the base of the big toe and then two ). on the heel).
“You still need traction,” Chate tells Telegraph Sport. “You just don’t need too much, because that’s how you get stuck and hurt. You need the right amount.
“It’s not a cure [for serious injuries]. But it’s like a seat belt. It doesn’t mean you can’t have an accident, but it reduces the risk. That is the goal.”
In this first stage, the stud has been designed mainly for artificial surfaces. But Chate has no doubt it would work effectively on the “hybrid” pitches used by many professional soccer clubs. On soft, mushy grass it would be ineffective in its current form but, if the surface is firm, the ball on the stud would be expected to slide (especially if it is greased).
Now on to the inevitable caveat: these are early days and the technology needs to be looked at a lot more. There is a long way to go before elite athletes can start screwing anti-grip studs into the soles of their boots.
However, preliminary research is promising. The stallions were examined in a study by the University of Stirling’s physiology research group, in which a group of amateur rugby players were subjected to acceleration, slalom and sprint tests.
The results showed that when using the anti-grip bolt, participants experienced a slight drop in straight-line acceleration speed. But they then made up for lost time when slaloming between cones, suggesting that the anti-grab bolt could help them change direction at high speed.
Since the bolt is designed to help athletes change direction more easily, it was considered an encouraging result. At least it showed that cleats had a material impact on a player’s movement.
The university’s goal was not to directly analyze whether cleats reduce injury risk. It would take years to complete such precise research.
“What we decided to do was see if we could identify known mechanisms of injury, specifically in football and rugby, and see if we could manipulate them by including this study,” says Dr. Lewis Macgregor, professor of physiology at the University of Stirling.
It’s too early to say for sure whether the pins actually manipulate those mechanics, but Dr. Macgregor’s opinion, based on his preliminary research, is that they deserve closer examination. “From a point of view of purely scientific interest, I think this is worth delving into,” he tells Telegraph Sport.
Working for her brand, Troup-O-One, Chate’s initial plan is to create a boot designed specifically for women. She adds that the door is open for her invention (which is patented) to be licensed for use by larger sportswear manufacturing companies.
For football as a whole, it is clear that something must change. Premier Injuries data shows there have been 196 injuries since the start of this Premier League season, a 15 per cent increase compared to the last four campaigns.
Of course, no bolt or boot could completely prevent serious injuries, and there isn’t enough definitive evidence yet to say that these anti-grab bolts will definitely have an impact. But if they could really make a difference, even a small difference, then those injured footballers, ruled out for months, would surely be the first to say they deserve a closer look.
