Saturday, June 5, 2010

Are Premier League Players More Likely to Get Hurt At the World Cup?

Players are dropping like flies, particularly the leading ones. In the past two days, we have seen a slew of World Cup stars go down with tournament-ending injuries: England's captain Rio Ferdinand, Cote D'Ivoire's talismanic Didier Drogba, Nigeria's Jon Obi Mikel, and today Slovakia's star defender Martin Skrtel and Holland's s Arjen Robben look set to join the ever-expanding list. Germany's Michael Ballack and Ghana's Michael Essien have also been ruled out in the last two weeks.

Is there a pattern? It's interesting to note how many of these stars ply their trade in the English Premier League - of the recent list only Robben plays his club football somewhere else, at Germany's Bayern Munich. Much has been written about the Premier League's grueling schedule - with teams forced to compete for the league in addition to the FA and Carling Cups, not to mention European competition, the season drags on - even the mid-table club Fulham played 59 matches this past season. With no real break before the World Cup begins, players may be at their limit.

For more, read here.

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