Sports Medicine | 2019
Reply to Lewin and O’Driscoll: Comment on: “Monitoring of Post-Match Fatigue in Professional Soccer: Welcome to the Real World”
Abstract
We would like to thank Lewin and O’Driscoll for their commentary [1] on our recently published current opinion paper [2] regarding post-match fatigue (PMF) monitoring in elite soccer. We will address in turn what we feel are their main points. Lewin and O’Driscoll [1] stated that the take-home message of our paper errs towards the negative and that PMF monitoring is probably too difficult and not worth introducing in a practical setting. We feel this was not the case, and it was certainly not our intention, as all the contributing authors to some extent utilize (or have utilized) PMF monitoring in professional club and/or national team soccer environments. However, through a critical in-depth review of the related literature, and based on our own experiences as well as exchanges with peers in elite settings, we stand by two of our key summary points: (1) owing to a lack of scientific (and anecdotal, we may add) evidence, uncertainty still exists around the real-world impact of current research regarding PMF monitoring and its usefulness in informing readiness to play in professional standard soccer players; (2) practitioners (e.g. coaching, sports science, medical) must collectively carefully weigh up the need and cost–benefit for PMF monitoring, accounting for factors such as logistical burden, coach buy-in, player compliance, exposure time and external workload output in competition, functional relevance of information, and a lack of evidence showing that incomplete recovery negatively influences ensuing performance, with requirements being determined on a caseby-case basis. Regarding coach buy-in and player compliance with PMF monitoring, Lewin and O’Driscoll [1] discussed how these factors have successfully evolved at Arsenal Football Club. This achievement is only to be congratulated and is undoubtedly linked to a high level of stability (coaching and medical staff notably) over many years and a club manager who was at the forefront of the upcoming sports science era, having already introduced a more systematic approach to preparing players in the late 1990s. The PMF research monitoring programme conducted by Thorpe [3] at Manchester United Football Club is, in our opinion, another example of good practice and was no doubt aided by strong levels of club stability and recognition and buy-in by the club’s coaching staff at that time. We share the same opinion as Lewin and O’Driscoll [1] in that the way forward is through coach and player education (and we may add upskilling of the former). ‘High performance’ education in academy players from an early age is necessary, while new senior squad signings should encounter PMF monitoring as part of their habitual match/training routine. Unfortunately, the reality is that in many contemporary professional soccer clubs, high levels of player compliance and coach buy-in are not the case, especially outside the English game. Many top players simply cannot be bothered with monitoring and need to be provided with a very good reason to comply. Elite soccer is resultsdriven and coaching staff frequently come and go, thereby This reply refers to the comment available at https ://doi. org/10.1007/s4027 9-018-0935-z.