Berlin – In the air duel, Tom Krauss from Nuremberg and Miro Muheim from Hamburger SV crash together. Krauss immediately sinks to the ground, hit hard, Muheim holds his forehead. Referee Bastian Dankert immediately waves to the doctors in the DFB Cup fight on Tuesday evening. Krauss is temporarily motionless on the lawn. Once again, a head hit in football provides a moment of shock and fuels the debate about the risks in aerial combat.
Tom Krauss gives the all-clear
With his head bandaged, Krauss gave the all-clear during his substitution shortly after half-time on the stretcher with a thumbs up. “Thank you for all the well-being wishes. I’m fine, ”wrote the 20-year-old on Wednesday morning on social media. “It was a moment of shock for the players who stood around it,” reported his coach Robert Klauss the evening before, who ran onto the grass to his injured player. The players had formed a privacy screen during the scary scene.
What exactly happened to Krauss in the duel, which is not uncommon in football? “At first it doesn’t look as if it is anything serious,” said Klauss in an initial vague assessment after the penalty shoot-out. But it will certainly be a more severe concussion.
Such cases happen again and again. Felix Götze from 1. FC Kaiserslautern was injured only on Monday. After a collision in the game against MSV Duisburg, the brother of world champion Mario Götze suffered a concussion. It wasn’t his first head injury. In mid-August, Götze had a hairline crack in his skull and was initially in the intensive care unit.
“Concussions are by no means trivial,” was the title of Tim Meyer and Thomas Hauser ‘s most recent guest post in Kicker. Meyer is chairman of the medical commissions of the DFB and the Uefa, since 2001 he has also been the team doctor for the national team. Hauser, in turn, is head of the Medical Center on the DFB campus and a member of the Medical Commission. “If you continue to play with a concussion, you risk impaired brain function. In addition, there are indications that if you return to the field too early, there is a risk of further injuries because the football-specific coordination may be restricted, ”wrote the doctors of two more recent findings.
The rulers of football have long been concerned with the crash and the head. For example, a study on concussions in football was on the agenda of the International Football Association Board (Ifab) on Wednesday. The German Football League also knows this sensitive and important topic. Since the 2019/20 season there has been a so-called baseline screening in both German top leagues. Neurological tests are carried out before the season to determine the possible deviation from normal health in the event of acute injuries.
3.5 times higher risk of neurodegenerative disease
The German Society for Neurology in Weimar referred only a few days ago to a study from Scotland, according to which professional footballers have a 3.5 times higher risk of developing a neurodegenerative disease in later life than the general population. This means that nerve cells perish. As a consequence, head protection was brought into play.
There have long been players who wear helmets – but not for reasons of precaution. Former Czech world-class goalkeeper Petr Cech decided in 2006 to always wear head protection when he was on duty for Chelsea FC and later Arsenal FC. In Germany, midfielder Klaus Gjasula grabbed a helmet because he broke his right zygomatic arch in a collision in 2013. Today’s SV Darmstadt professional said a long time ago: “People only act when it has already happened, not before.”