The legendary Red Devils coach: The road to success

Chapter 55 Sports Medicine

"Ferguson was shocked by the Manchester United's injuries and immediately knew the core reason why the team was in such a quagmire. He also remembered that he had experienced serious injuries in his career. He understood how important sports medicine was to the team and the players, and immediately vigorously developed the Manchester United's sports medicine."

--Inscription

English football values ​​bravery and fortitude, and players are aggressive on the field, which often leads to injuries and fractures. The frequency of injuries among British players, the variety of injuries, and the length of recovery time are the most serious in Europe's top leagues. Many players have been engaged in professional football since they were very young, and the roots of their illnesses are buried early. Another reason is that the English league has many games and there is no winter break, which makes it easier for players to get injured.

Player injuries are the direct cause of team performance, and almost all teams try to avoid them. However, in the UK, preventing injuries and restoring player health by improving medical insurance has not been taken seriously for a long time.

Looking back at history, medical treatment in English football was still in the wild until the 20s. When Redknapp played for Liverpool, he was the captain of the team and had a high status, but his knee injury was not treated properly. Instead, he was treated arbitrarily by the club's logistics staff who did not have a medical license, and he was forbidden to seek medical treatment privately. In the end, Redknapp had to take a long vacation and privately find a famous medical expert to perform surgery, so as to avoid the nightmare of "not being able to walk normally" for the rest of his life.

Is Redknapp's experience accidental? Not really.

The truth is so cruel. Dr. Martin Hynes, who performed the surgery on Redknapp, said: "Every season, at least 20 professional players come to me for treatment. I'm not talking about ordinary players. More than half of them are Premier League players, and many of them are internationals. There are too many players coming, and I can only say that some players will really lose the opportunity for treatment."

Martin Heins is one of the most famous doctors in the field of sports medicine, but surgical experts in the United States and Germany regularly see even more Premier League players.

This is the cruel reality.

Before Ferguson came, the Red Devils were no better off than other clubs. But Ferguson himself had suffered serious injuries during his career, so he naturally understood the significance of the sports medical system. The alcoholism in the club at the time was not conducive to injury recovery, and Ferguson was extremely shocked when Robson and Whiteside barely returned to the team before their bodies had recovered, "like two old springs that could break at any time."

Ferguson is determined to start changing the medical environment of the Red Devils, which is an urgent task.

Ferguson continued to invest resources to better improve the Red Devils' medical level. Although the Red Devils never publicized this, the team always understood that this was one of Ferguson's greatest achievements in shaping the Red Devils dynasty.

Ferguson required the establishment of a professional medical team, the purchase and introduction of new medical equipment, and the continuous increase in investment.

He first set a strict requirement that the players' physical conditions must be checked and registered and confirmed by the medical team: "Without the doctor's consent, players who have recovered from injuries cannot participate in the reserve team games; players who cannot get a doctor's pass must not play in official games."

Ferguson's measures quickly took effect. The Red Devils rebuilt the medical team and continued to allocate resources to the medical system.

Under Ferguson's dedicated care, Robson's injury received the best treatment and Whiteside also recovered.

Ferguson then expanded the number of medical team members on a large scale, introduced professional elites with excellent medical skills, and made the Red Devils the club with the most complete sports medical recovery equipment in the UK. There are complex sports equipment, sufficient temporary operating rooms and emergency rooms, which can not only handle emergency injuries and accidents, but also serve as a complete rehabilitation center. Players can effectively use various equipment to recover every part of the body, every muscle and tendon. There is also a big ball with a diameter of 2.5 meters in the No. treatment room. Beckham and others often tie themselves to this big ball and turn it in order to improve the body's balance ability.

The Red Devils have assembled a first-class medical support team, and Ferguson specially invited the famous doctor David Favre to lead the team in 1990. Favre is a licensed sports therapist in the UK and holds a medical license, which allows him to directly provide emergency treatment and perform complex operations.

Dr. Favre became Ferguson's good friend and assistant. On the magical "treble" dream night in 1999, Dr. Favre was sitting on Ferguson's left in the coaching booth. Under Ferguson's rule, the Red Devils' sports medicine entered a new stage. David Favre was the first licensed trainer to enter the British professional football circle, and his team made a lot of contributions to the rapid rise of the Red Devils.

The UK has very detailed and strict management of medical qualifications. Favor received three years of specialized sports therapy training at university and completed 3 hours of study in the university's medical department, including the required 4000 hours of clinical internship. He also obtained licenses issued by both the school and the hospital before he could obtain the title of MCSP - a member of the American Society of Licensed Sports Therapists.

The counterpart of MCSP is PHYSIO - Sports Management Specialist. PHYSIO is the product of the English Football Association's access system in the football field in 1989. The English Football Association requires all trainers of professional football clubs to study sports therapy at the National Sports Center. Only those who pass the training can get the trainer certificate - that is, PHYSIO. But this training system is quite ridiculous. The entire two-year training is distance education, and there is no need for examination. As long as you pay a training fee of 2 pounds, the center will send a lot of professional materials, which already includes the certificate. Therefore, many people who hold PHYSIO qualifications do not understand medicine and have no medical background.

The actual effect of such a shady training system in English football can be imagined. The policy was not implemented until the beginning of 2004, but 417 graduates had already started working. They are scattered among 92 professional clubs in the four leagues of the Premier League, League One, League Two and League Three.

Ferguson not only attached great importance to the establishment of a medical team, but he was also good at exploring new areas in football. He was the first in the Premier League to include the restoration of "peripheral vision" in the training subjects for injured players returning to the team. Players must follow the requirements and pay attention to the situation in three directions and dimensions around them at the same time during high-speed movement.

With Ferguson's insistence, the Red Devils' sports medical care was running efficiently. Such efforts were soon rewarded. With the help of a complete medical system, the Red Devils players had an advantage over other clubs in terms of rehabilitation and returning to the team for training. After entering 1987, the Red Devils' fighting power recovered rapidly, which played an important role in Ferguson's subsequent coaching.

Not only that, the strong and efficient medical system also helps the Red Devils to ensure the overall combat effectiveness of the team. Since winning the FA Cup in 1990, the Red Devils have gradually achieved their dominance in the Premier League. The facts over the past 20 years have told everyone that the Red Devils' dominance in the Premier League is supported by a strong medical system.

Many Red Devils fans find it incomprehensible that the team has suffered widespread injuries. In fact, there is another reason, which is the intensity of the Red Devils' training and games.

Since the Ferguson era, players have taken the initiative to train, squeezed their physical strength, encouraged fighting spirit, and tried their best to do their best. This is why the Red Devils players are prone to injuries. After Ferguson, another problem surfaced: the Red Devils players could not maintain high intensity in daily training, and the injuries during the games became more frequent.

Ferguson clearly understood the hidden dangers of the team's increasing injuries and began to seek new solutions. He paid more attention to the players' condition and constantly ensured their combat effectiveness through rotation and extensive use of new players.

In October 2012, before retiring, Ferguson personally pushed the Red Devils to reach a sponsorship agreement with Toshiba, which funded the establishment of the Red Devils' exclusive sports medicine and rehabilitation center in Carrington.

This sports medicine and rehabilitation center is equipped with equipment including MRI, ultrasound, advanced spiral CT, and a sports reaction testing system.

"If we had these five years ago, we could have avoided the tragedy of Hargreaves," Ferguson said.

Hargreaves' injury is a tragedy.

Hargreaves didn't play for the Red Devils for long, but he suffered from a series of injuries and finally left with regret. Hargreaves later believed that there was something wrong with the Red Devils' medical team, which completely delayed his sports career. In the 2012 League Cup, Hargreaves scored again after three years, and he was emotional and immediately attacked the Red Devils. The media began to follow up and dug out that Hargreaves suffered a serious knee injury in September 2008, but the Red Devils let him play with closed knees before the tendon injury recovered.

The Sun said: "It is an intolerable tragedy that the Red Devils treated Hargreaves like a lab rat, causing his injury to worsen."

"They told me that one shot would work, but that clearly wasn't the case," Hargreaves said. "If I had known that would be the end result, I would not have accepted their arrangement."

Ferguson hit back firmly: "Hargreaves' experience is sympathetic, but he has not suffered any injustice or been treated wrongly. There are detailed records of Hargreaves' treatment process. If necessary, we can consider publishing it all. Hargreaves' injury was caused by objective reasons. To be honest, he knows exactly what happened."

Hargreaves chose to stop, and the media dug up more inside information. At that time, it was Hargreaves himself who strongly requested to play, but was stopped by the Red Devils medical team. In order to play the game as soon as possible, Hargreaves decided to abandon the plan of the Red Devils medical team and chose a new doctor and clinic for treatment. This eventually led to some irreversible serious consequences.

The Red Devils' medical centre was expanded to near-specialist hospital standards in 2011, with the club spending £2500 million to purchase state-of-the-art CT and MRI scanners and other equipment, and forming three teams to bring medical care and emergency response capabilities to a new level.

After the completion of the medical center, the players have to stay in it for a while before and after training every day, fill out a physical report form in detail, and carefully list any problems encountered the day before, whether it is a leg injury, arm pain, or poor sleep the night before, all must be "confessed". The staff uses ultrasonic instruments to monitor the operation of the players' muscles, ligaments and blood vessels. Doctors compare these complex data with previous injuries to analyze and judge whether he is likely to be injured again. Toshiba's latest heart examination device can form 3D images more accurately to judge the condition of the ventricles, blood flow and blood vessels. After obtaining these data, the staff of the Red Devils Medical Center began to work, conducting detailed analysis from the three aspects of spirit, body and biochemistry to obtain a comprehensive analysis report.

After the prediction results are released, a report of injury warning will be submitted to the players, assistant coaches and head coaches. They will adjust the training intensity according to the predicted injury risk level. If the injury risk level reaches the orange (highest) level, the players can take a "sick leave" and receive recovery and health care at the medical center.

The Red Devils Medical Center can even "predict injuries" six months in advance based on the players' physical condition and workload, allowing the coaching team to intervene in advance and adjust the players' training and game arrangements.

Ferguson brought about a comprehensive reform to the Red Devils, from internal management to tactics and training, from youth training to medical rehabilitation. He promoted the team's progress from every substantive project and prompted the team to start changing.