I am beginning to notice a trend. The New England Revolution released their usual early-week injury report today, and midfielder Ousmane Dabotops the "Out" list with an adductor strain. He is joined by five other players, two of whom are suffering from muscle strains. Dabo missed the first eight matches of the 2011 season with a quadriceps strain that he endured on the second day of preseason training. Now, you may be thinking that the trend I'm noticing is injury-proneness in the 34-year old midfielder, but that isn't the case. No, I'm noticing a team-wide trend in muscular injuries. Since the first regular-season injury report was released back in March, the Revolution have never had fewer than four players on the list. In that time, a whopping two-thirds of those injuries listed have been muscle strains. Most of those have been hamstring or quadriceps issues, with a sprinkling of adductor strains (Otto Loewy has been out the last few weeks for calf strains; his are the first). Am I alone in thinking there might be something wrong here? Are the Revs doing something wrong in training, or is the preventative work of the physios lagging behind? Could it be the turf? I have to note that the volume of muscle strains has gone down in the weeks prior to today's report, but the list has swelled to three again and between this and last season's injury woes, this is starting to become far too much of a pattern for my liking. It's tough to try and blame head trainer Sean Kupiec for these issues considering his standing as an MLS leader in the field, but the answer has to lie somewhere. Perhaps Kupiec needs more help, or maybe the coaches have to re-evaluate their warm-up regimen. Either way, it's looking more and more like this is an issue caused by something within the organization rather than blind luck. What do you think?Revolution Over-Strained?
by Stoehrst on May 10, 2011 8:18 PM EDT in Commentary
