So we’re following all things Champions League final this week at Football Tripper. ‘Pray tell, where’s the much-anticipated column on the forthcoming World Cup final!’, we hear avid readers crying. Well there’s plenty of time for that over the upcoming weeks.
We’ll be highlighting stats and facts that will impress your ‘pubbing’ colleagues’, along with helping you with those important gaming odds & emerging betting exchanges. We’ll cut throw the dizziness surrounding Russia, and help fans orientate themselves this World Cup…but not right now…
For now we wanted to shift the focus onto a pressing question that has dramatically re-entered the football frame. And that is one of concussion in sport. Specifically football…
BBC Sports threw out two stories this week. One reporting that Lorius Karius had been referred to doctors for concussion testing, and the second asking the question ‘Did Loris Karus play on with concussion’ during the 2018 Champions League final.
To kick off the debate in the office at FT we threw down five examples of concussions within football.
1) Shocking moment at Stevenage on Michael Timlin
3) Maddness in ’82: Battiston knocked out
4) Why Cech wears head protection
5) Truly life threatening: Jaba Kankava saves Dynamo Kiew’s caption Gusev’s life
All of the above differ in scenarios but wholly demonstrate the risks that are present for professional footballers in every game they play.
And it was in the recalling of these examples that we realised where Karius’s particular incident differs & highlights a real danger: identifying unseen concussion. Not to mention the long-term effects they may be having on professional sportsman?
Most will remember Alan Shearer’s doc on the wider issues of dementia that could be caused by such incidents, and the wider studies in American Football of the widespread episodes of concussions.
Karius’s potentially cost a Champion’s League final, that’s if you believe the reports, which we wouldn’t like to question by the way.
Nonetheless in terms of medical professionals it’s undoubtedly a hard call that, to be honest, no football lover would ever want to face. You could be confronted with a player that’s adamant they can play on, sometimes echoed by thousands of fans, or even worse an incident that goes under the radar like Karius’s.
“If in doubt, sit them out”, is the FA’s line. And that’s something that surely needs to be reflected across the game, amongst referrees & footballers, no matter the scenario, or world-class player at its’ centre.
Now to close, for you keen readers, you may have spotted a World Cup Easter Egg in Battison’s collision. And it’s because of our next post that such an incident was on our minds. In it we’ll be looking at all things Russian 2018 with a specific focus on calling the big moments: potential top scorers, star tournament players, and teams that could go all the way.