Does the Amount of Injuries Affect the Final Ranking at the End of the Competitive Season in Football?

Abstract

The aim of this research is to determine whether a larger number of injuries in the team affects the final competitive achievement of clubs in the 1st Croatian Football League. Data on injuries in training and matches were collected using UEFA's Injury Study Questionnaire. 340 players (in all 10 clubs) participated in the research. The Chi-square test was used for non-parametric tests while logistic regression analysis was used to correlate the independent and dependent variables. The hypothesis that clubs with lower rankings will have statistically significant more injuries has not been confirmed (p<0.05), but this difference (although not statistically confirmed) still exists between clubs that finished the championship at the top five compared to the low five clubs.