The Milan Injury Crisis
Milan’s season has been as notable for controversies and title fight as by the injuries suffered over the season. Annalisa D’Antonio tries to find out why this has been a remarkably injury-plagued season for her beloved team
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Have any of you been wondering about the vast amount of injuries plaguing Milan these past few years? Have any of you wondered where these problems are stemming from? Well, I’ve been wondering about this for quite awhile and it puzzles me, as I’m sure it does all other Milanisti: why the number of injuries has been increasing dramatically in the past few years.
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Milan is currently in second place in the Serie A table, just one point behind first place contender Juventus. However, it should be taken into consideration that Milan have suffered quite an astounding number of injuries this season, as opposed to Juventus who have had very few. No one could have ever imagined that Milan could be in such bad physical shape. The Rossoneri are the team that have been struck by the most number of injuries in Serie A this season. According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, the sum of games missed by unavailable players due to injuries are 247 in Serie A alone, with an increment of 150% with respect to last season. This could be a fundamental deciding factor for the scudetto race between Milan and Juventus in the final stages of the season. Some may argue that Milan has been struck with bad luck, when taking all their injuries into consideration. Two of their many injuries can fall into the bad luck category: Gennaro Gattuso and Antonio Cassano. Gattuso was diagnosed with ocular myasthenia, which is a paralysis of the optic nerve, which kept him out from the twentieth minute of the second league match, making him unavailable for the majority of the season. Cassano, on the other hand, suffered an ischemic stroke and while he was hospitalised, a heart defect was discovered and he underwent an operation to correct this problem. However, as any Milanista would agree, not all of Milan’s problems stem from ill fate. Two injuries caused by bad luck isn’t a significant amount to be considered a bad luck streak, when compared to the amount of overall injuries.
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Throughout the years, we have heard about the avant-garde MilanLab, located in Milanello, which is known as being one of Europe’s most innovative sports facilities with its exceptional training and medical centre. MilanLab was considered to be one of the secrets behind Milan’s success. The aging players (by football standards) would benefit from the amenities of the MilanLab, therefore prolonging their career beyond what is considered to be the usual age of retirement. MilanLab is a high-tech scientific research centre, with a mission to aid athletes to attain the best performance possible, to maintain fitness and to decrease the risk of injury.
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Regardless of having the world-renowned MilanLab, which is supposed to detect possible injuries and prevent them, in the past couple of years Milan have been suffering a substantial amount of injuries; each year being worse than the last one, thus making it exceptionally difficult for them to participate in all competitions at the capacity they are used to. This season has been record-breaking, as Milan have been inundated with numerous injuries at once, having to endure the shortage of available key players. It hasn’t been uncommon this season for Milan to have to reinvent their starting lineup, due to the fact that they’ve had up to fourteen injured players unavailable at once.
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Statistics show that the injuries that have been occurring in the past years are mainly linked to muscle problems. In the past two seasons, players who were well known for their strength and stamina are now succumbing to Milan’s dreadful injury plague. A good example of that is Mark van Bommel, a pillar in the midfield and a vital player for Milan, who is just now coming back after a month-long back injury. Last month, right-back Ignazio Abate suffered a muscular injury while training, putting him out of commission for a few weeks. This was a major setback for Milan, as he is one of their most prominent starters.
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Another problem is that players are not gradually brought into the game after recovering from an injury. The decision to play Thiago Silva in a league match against Roma was a bad judgment call, knowing that he had received a knock four days prior in a Coppa Italia match against Juventus. Milan took a risk letting the Brazilian play; unfortunately he had to abandon the game after ten minutes with a problematic flexor muscle, which would keep him out for four weeks. In my opinion, the decision to have the players at the team’s disposal is not well thought out between manager, Massimiliano Allegri and the physicians at the MilanLab. Does Allegri obtain the information and not use it to his advantage? Or is the MilanLab not circulating the information appropriately? The fact that the players come to play and become injured shortly after shows that they are not physically fit to be playing as a starter or in the game at all. This goes to prov
e my theory that it seems that something is missing in the final decision that determines whether they are ready to play again or not. Players don’t fully recuperate from their initial injury, not allowing them to heal completely, thus making their injuries repetitive. A perfect example is the man made of crystal, also known as Alexandre Pato. He has suffered fourteen injuries in the last couple of years, mainly due to chronic thigh injury. This season alone, Pato has suffered from four serious muscular injuries keeping him out for the majority of the season. When not even the team’s doctors could solve the puzzle of Pato’s recurring injuries, they took him all over the place; from Germany to the United States, hoping they would be able to find the solution. The Belgian doctor Jean-Pierre Meersseman was fresh out of ideas and said that if Professor Frederick Carrick at the Life University of Marietta in Atlanta, Georgia would not be able to solve this issue, he would have to resort to his last option, which would be to contact his spiritual therapist to pray for Pato.
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Shortly after returning from Atlanta, Pato was subbed on in the second half of the second leg of the Champions League quarter-final against Barcelona. This turned out to be disastrous, as the young striker had to leave the pitch in pain after merely fourteen minutes. As the club doctor said: “Pato was declared clinically recovered thirteen times but is obviously not cured.” The 22-year-old went from being one of the most promising young strikers to being the most injury-prone, with the fear that his career could be over at such a young age, if a cure is not found.
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Many have speculated that relentless training, Allegri’s tactics, some players’ excessive sex life and the condition of San Siro’s pitch cause the injuries. However, I do not agree with such speculations for specifically two reasons: a) I haven’t heard of many Milan players who got injured by having sex with their girlfriends (or at least, not that we’ve read about in Vanity Fair) and b) if the condition of the pitch was directly related to the injuries, that would mean that Inter Milan would have just as many injuries, seeing that they share the same pitch. Let’s face it, the injuries don’t only happen at San Siro: they have occurred during training sessions, away matches and etcetera. I still stick to my opinion that there is an unresolved problem at the MilanLab, because with all the state-of-the-art equipment and technology, there shouldn’t be this influx of recurring injuries, which usually span over a minimum of two weeks and up.
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Milan started the season without a full squad and have come this far, competing in three major competitions and making it to the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League, only to be eliminated by the best team in the world, while still holding their own during both legs. At this point of the season, with only six games remaining, it gives us Milanisti hope that, although we still don’t have a full squad, we are in second place, only one point behind Juventus. Let us not forget that while Juventus only had Serie A to focus on and hardly any injured players, Milan were in first place for a while, with Juventus trailing behind in second place. All things considered, Milan is doing quite well bearing in mind the lengthy and numerous injuries. To my fellow Milanisti, I leave you with this: Forza Milan, non mollare mai![1]
About Annalisa D'Antonio
Annalisa D’Antonio is a passionate AC Milan supporter. Apart from calcio, she enjoys travelling and is a firm believer in astrology. She can be reached on twitter @mrsgilardino
