Head impact events in youth football in India and Australia, compared to FIFA Men's World Cup matches

Abstract

This observational study compared incidence and characteristics of head impact events in matches in male youth under-18 football within Australia and India, to the Men's FIFA World Cup™ (FWC). Ten match videos from Australia, India and the 2018 FWC (total n ​= ​30) were coded for head impact events (purposeful headers and unintentional head impacts), match result as well as incidence rates (IR) per 1000 match-hours for heading performance characteristics. One-Way ANOVAs were conducted to assess statistical significance of heading IR and other characteristics. Purposeful headers (n ​= ​2734) were the most common head impact event (97%) with significantly more headers being completed by players from India (IR:3239) compared to Australia (IR: 2096) and FWC (IR: 2509). Most headers were completed during free play, via contact with the players forehead. Heading duels were more common in FWC matches (32%), than those in Australia (23%) or India (19%) (p ​< ​0.001). More headers occurred in the centre of the pitch (range 36–48%), with centre-backs completing the most headers across all groups (range 30–33%). Winning teams in India performed more headers from set-pieces than losing teams (p ​< ​0.001). In FWC matches, winning teams performed more headers in the defensive third compared to losing teams (p ​= ​0.02). Despite similar heading characteristics across both U18 groups and the FWC, players in India recorded higher heading incidence, suggesting that heading guidelines would benefit from being country and age specific.