Soccer and football involve aerobic exercise that can help to develop and maintain a strong and healthy body, but players in both sports run considerable risk of serious injury. The risk of injury, and the types of injury most typically sustained, vary between the two sports.
Play
The mode of play differs in football and soccer, which affects the likelihood and type of physical injuries suffered by players. Soccer is a mostly noncontact sport in which a round ball is kicked around a field or pitch measuring approximately 140 by 100 yards. Soccer players jog or run pretty much constantly throughout a game. By contrast, football is a contact sport in which players can kick, throw or carry the ball in their hands. Players tackle one another and the flow of the sport is play-by-play. American football players are not in constant motion throughout a game.
Injuries: Soccer
A study published in the 2005 Archives of Disease in Childhood assessed the likelihood of soccer players sustaining injury in comparison to athletes in other sporting disciplines such as tennis, swimming and gymnastics. A total of 453 study participants between the ages of 8 and 16 years were examined, and of those participants actively involved in sport over a period of 10 years, soccer players were found the most likely to sustain injury. Some 63.3 percent of young soccer players experienced injury, compared with 28.1 percent of swimmers. The types of injuries most commonly sustained by soccer players were musculoskeletal injuries to the lower body.
Injuries: Football
A 1991 article published in the journal Sports Medicine indicates that 1.2 million injuries annually are sustained by American football players. Just over half these injuries occurred during training rather than during a game. and injuries were almost five times as likely to occur during contact sessions. Knee injuries are relatively common among American football players, with lower-extremity injuries overall accounting for half of all injuries. Thirty percent of injuries assessed by this study involved the upper body. Strains, sprains, contusions, fractures and concussions were the most common types of injury sustained.
Comparison
Both sports carry a risk of injury, and it is impossible to quantify an individual player's overall risk of injury during a game of a season. In general, both sports take a relatively heavy toll on the knees and lower extremities. The risk of injury to the upper extremities is much higher in football than in soccer -- with the exception of the goalkeeper, soccer players do not use their hands and arms to handle the ball. American football players are more likely to suffer concussions, or injuries to the cervical spine. Such injuries can be catastrophic or life-threatening.
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