Sarina Wiegman Believes Winter Break Is Needed To Prevent Injuries To Female Players

With five of the current top twenty female soccer players in the world currently out of action after suffering ruptures to their anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), England’s European championship winning coach Sarina Wiegman believes the calendar of matches for players is becoming too great a burden and increasing the risk of more long-term injuries in the game.

Yesterday, Wiegman’s Dutch compatriot, Vivianne Miedema became the latest top women’s player to confirm she had suffered an ACL rupture, seemingly ruling her out of the rest of the season and next July’s FIFA Women’s World Cup finals. Just a few weeks earlier, Miedema spoke out about the need to offer greater protection to overworked female players at the top of the game. Already recovering from the same injury are the Ballon D’Or winner, Alexia Putellas, the UEFA Women’s Euro Player of the Tournament, Beth Mead, the world’s leading goalscorer at the time, Marie Katoto and the United States’ new prodigy, Catarino Macario.

Speaking to the media at Wembley Stadium, Wiegman said “I think in general for the top, top level players the schedule is too much. For the top players worldwide, we have five consecutive summer tournaments in a row with the 2024 Olympics. I think the level of the game has improved and so the load on players, physically and mentally – and you can’t split that because we are all human beings – does ask so much of them.”

While everyone has welcomed the professionalization of the women’s game around the world, the speed at which this has taken place has varied from country to country. With the top European players now taking part in an expanded UEFA Women’s Champions League and, from next season, a new UEFA Nations League tournament at international level, women who began their careers as part-time players may be struggling to adapt to the demands of so many matches.

The meeting of the FIFA Council last week missed an opportunity to address the concerns of those within the women’s game by committing to preserve the international calendar in its current form until at least 2025 and, moreover, promising to introduce another tournament, a proposed women’s Club World Cup, into an already overcrowded schedule. In a statement, the player’s union, FIFPRO expressed their dismay saying “decisions to scale competitions without implementing appropriate safeguards are short-sighted and pay no attention to player’s health and performance.”

Wiegman admitted, “the growth has gone so quickly, so players also need a proper rest to get things settled down, and they don’t have the rest. After the Euro’s for example, the Manchester City players only had a couple of days off because they went into the Champions League qualifying round again. That is not good. You can have that some times, but they need a rest to get some head space and get the mind and body right.”

The England coach, who lacking professional opportunities as a player was forced to move to North Carolina in 1989 to further her career, understands the conflict between the needs of the players and those trying to grow a still developing sport and make it commercially viable. She called on the world’s governing bodies to be better coordinated. “I think FIFA, UEFA and the Federations, we just need to do a little better and all think of the players. The game develops and it is very easy to say FIFA and UEFA need to collaborate, but it is also becoming more and more of a professional game, so the commercial part of it is an important one too. We need to put the players first. But if there is no commercial part, how do we make a living? Then you have a choice of whether you are a professional footballer anymore.”

“It is finding the balance and finding the best way. I do think we can do a better job and give players a little more rest. If you don’t have it in the summer, you need a proper winter break. You can have some rest before the tournament but not too long because if you’re off for too long, it can take about five or six weeks to get back to a good level.”

“The impact an international tournament has on the top level players is so big they need a proper rest. Maybe one year you can skip it and get through it, but when it is two or three years, then we all take a big risk with injuries. That is the general picture, but you always have to look at the individuals. You always have to look at the context of the individual to see what could be the reason for an injury. Sometimes it is to do with scheduling, and sometimes it is the bigger picture because so many things are going on besides football where people need more help.”

The English Women’s Super League is currently in the middle of a month-long break from December 11 to mid-January, but this cannot be described as a ‘proper winter break’ as any rest period for the players has been undermined by the scheduling of the last two rounds of potentially season-defining UEFA Women’s Champions League matchdays, it was during the second of those that Miedema suffered her injury.

Wiegman believes all she can do for the moment as an international coach is look at what each player requires depending on their own circumstances. “At the end you have to bring it back to the individual and what we do with the national team. We can’t control the whole schedule but we try to figure it out. We have our general program to build fitness, but we always custom to the individual. If for an individual, it is not good to do the full training session, they do a little less, or if they need a little more, they do a little more.”

Wiegman faces the likelihood that the scorer of 21 goals in her 26 games as England coach, Arsenal’s Beth Mead will also miss the FIFA Women’s World Cup after suffering an ACL injury last month. Wiegman told me that Mead presented her with a shirt from the UEFA Women’s Euro Final in which she was named the Player of the Tournament and has not yet given up on her being fit for the World Cup in July.

“It’s too early to say whether she will be (available for the World Cup), so we just take it easy now. First recover, and then over the next months we’ll see how it will develop. No push, no, she has to become fit again, taking care of herself, and she knows she will get all the support from Arsenal and she gets all the support from us and The FA.”

For all the talk of better scheduling and minimizing risk, Wiegman concedes injuries will still occur. “Look, we are playing football and it is a contact sport. Football is a physical sport so you always have a risk of getting an injury because that is what it is. What you’re trying to do is also find the edge, but also take out as much risk as possible to do good scheduling and to do good preparation, good recovery and listen to players with data in order to do the best job for the individual to make the risk of getting injury as low as possible. There is always a risk of getting injured when you’re playing football and sometimes you can make the chance lower, but if someone kicks you on the knee, you can’t help it.”