Will these 5 men help Torres end his injury nightmare?

In the last of couple of years, Fernando Torres’s fitness has been a constant bugbear for Liverpool fans. Out for a few weeks, out for a month, out for a few months, Torres has suffered more than most in his second and third years at Anfield. It is hardly surprising though for two fundamental reasons. Torres has said himself that he hasn’t had a proper break for three years, not in fact since the summer of 2007. Euro 2008, the 2009 Confederations Cup and this summer’s World Cup have meant that that Torres has rarely had time to rest his weary legs, even with all the injuries he has had. He stated near the end of the World Cup that rather than returning to England to discuss his future with new Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson, he needed a few weeks holiday to recharge his batteries.

It is fully deserved in my opinion. Burn out is a constant worry in modern football and it is clear to see that some of the world’s best players just couldn’t handle the extra month of football in South Africa. Torres’s performance were much criticised but it was criticism without viewing the context of the Spanish striker’s situation. Ravaged by injuries during the 2009/10 season after a gruelling summer in South Africa at the Confederations Cup, he only returned from injury just in time for the World Cup and his lack of match sharpness showed, he looked way short of fitness and form.

Why do you ask has such injury proneness not befallen the rest of Spain’s World Cup winning squad after their frequent successes in the past few years? This brings me onto my second reason: the style of player that Torres is. Very similar to Michael Owen in style, Torres uses pace and is heavily reliant on his physical attributes as a footballer. His body affectively takes a pounding and his team-mates, such as Xavi and David Villa, are less demanding on themselves physically. Xavi’s pass and move style, and Villa’s jinking runs on the ball contrast with Torres who is constantly moving while playing the lone striker role for both club and country; a lone striker’s role which requires tremendous energy and stamina. The regularity of hamstring injuries is testament to this and the fact that Liverpool are so over-reliant on him has no doubt also resulted in a higher number of injuries.

So how do you deal with the problem? How do you ensure that an over worked player can stay fit and healthy even with the number of games he plays? The solution can only be found in managing the body, doing everything possible to prevent an injury from occurring. To this end Liverpool have appointed five new medical staff to monitor and manage the condition of players. The Sports Science and Sports Medicine department has been put in place with former Australian Socceroos head doctor Peter Brukner in charge. He has appointed 2 physios from the Socceroos in Darren Burgess and Phil Coles, former Tottenham head doctor Zaf Iqubal and Jordan Milsom as a Sport Scientist. Liverpool will also work with John Moores University and will utilise the knowledge of their Sports Science Consultant Barry Drust.

I have written in greater length in a previous article about Dr Brukner and the fact that Australia are world leaders in Sports Science and Medicine and I believe the changes are long overdue. In recent days Brukner has already spoken about his preparations for the new season and more specifically about Alberto Aquliani:

“Alberto’s ankle, which was a problem last year, is now 100 per cent healed. He has been training and has looked very sharp. He’ll have to keep working on his injury prevention programme and if he does, I’m sure the supporters will see the best of him because last season was very frustrating for him injury-wise.”

The very player specific and regimented injury prevention programme will be instrumental to the new medical staff’s future planning and Brukner has stated that despite the difficulty of the World Cup, he has already contacted every player and talked about their specific fitness plans for the new season. It may not sound all that revolutionary but football has lagged behind other sports in regards to Sports Science, and hopefully Liverpool can get one up on the opposition at least in this area, and hopefully finally help Torres recover fitness for more than a few weeks at a time.

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