This has been posted so many times on this thread. I have often taken it as truth but this morning it piqued my interest. tranfermarkt listed a single 17 day injury on his career page.... so I took another cursory view of his games per season and there are some gaps that could be explained by injury but nothing like entire lost seasons. Maybe 96/97? That was early in his career when he got the move to Leverkusen. He was on the bench a lot and not on the squad list as well that year. Injury concerns? Maybe. 02/03 seems like an injury year but he still played 12 games. At this point I think Gio's injury history is already way worse than his father's. Year/Season - Club Games 2008 - 6 2007 - 23 06/07 - 16 05/06 - 24 04/05 - 17 03/04 - 31 02/03 - 12 01/02 - 33 00/01 - 30 99/00 - 42 98/99 - 31 97/98 - 30 96/97 - 6 95/96 - 23
04/05 he missed a huge chunk due to a thigh injury.Do t forget he was actually injured in the Ghana game in WC 06 ,which was why he coughed up the ball in our end.He missed the start of that next season.
He still played 17 games in that club season. Again... I am not trying to say that Claudio didn't suffer from injuries through the years just positing that the common comparison to Gio's injury history is perhaps a fallacy. Transfermarkt once listed Gio as a $42 million player and that value has fallen all the way to $12 million. We are nearly at the end of another half season and Gio has made a single appearance for BVB. And the news on his injury/recovery is a mystery? Yikes. He is still only 21 (almost 22) but it is really starting to look like our most promising young player in recent memory will not reach his potential. I hope I am wrong but this is just a ridiculous set of injury woes for such a young player.
Maybe not entire missed seasons, but even that 30-game season (18 league apps) in 2000/01 meant that he missed over half of Rangers's league campaign. He was basically a part-time player for the last 8 years of his career.
Agreed that Gio might actually not wind up with much of a career at all,as opposed to having a career with several injuries.
Gio already has 15 more 1st team appearances the JOB had his entire career, and only 1 fewer cap. At this age JOB had 1/5th the number of 1st team games as Gio. So like, way to go for the witty commentary but it's minimally accurate at best.
JOB had the fortune of playing in a World Cup immediately following the only season in his career where he was healthy enough to start a majority of games for club or country. He had very few national team appearances prior to that season, and nearly all of his national team appearances after that tournament were part of a long shot rehabilitation effort when he was barely playing for his club. If the World Cup had been held in the summer of 2021 rather than the winter of 2022, and if Reyna were to retire right now, JOB and Gio would have had very similar club and NT careers. But of course, Gio is still 8 years younger than JOB was when he retired.
It is sad to see Gio turning into a what-could-have-been. He was right there with BVB starting alongside his friends/fellow teenagers Haaland and Bellingham .... thought of in a similar vein as those two regarding talent/potential/future but then he's just been absolutely plagued by constant injury. Sometimes young players grow out of that but sometimes they don't. Hoping for the best.
Reyna will tell Jude and haaland stories for years. They will grow stale so let's hope he tells them to different audiences. Going to England on loan killed his career. Going to Italy or France would of been better. But young Gio couldn't turn down the prem bruh
Claudio was born in ‘73…because I’m an eternal optimist, I’ll take the over on Gio from this point forward.
Yea I’m hoping he can find a healthier stretch of games than he’s had. If only he had his Mom’s injury genes instead of his Dad’s. I have no idea how much diet/training regiment/genes each impacts how likely someone is to get injured, but I’m hoping he’s doing as much as he possibly can with the first 2. I wouldn’t say Pulisic’s injuries haven’t been as bad as Reyna’s, but he’s been mostly healthy this season and last after being hurt practically every season for several weeks so there’s hope for Reyna.
Professional soccer is a physically grueling business unfortunately. It not only requires immense talent and skill but also the good fortune to have a body that can stand up to the rigors of it. Obviously, people can be proactive in this department re training/diet/stretching/strengthening etc etc but to a large degree it does come down to genetics. A lot of really talented players just simply didn't have the body to maintain it.
The number of kids who have come out of La Masia looking like the next Messi only to get caught up in a vicious cycle of injuries is kind of insane. We're seeing it right now with Ansu Fati, who just picked up a fresh hamstring injury in training that will keep him out for 4 weeks. You gotta go through a lot of Bojans and Marc Muniesas to get a Yamal.
Barcelona also has a huge problem with intentionally running their youth prospects into the ground. Gavi played like 3,200 senior minutes just at club level as a 17-year-old. That's insane load management, and now they're reaping what they sowed.
That's truly bonkers. The body tends finish major musculoskeletal changes before 15, but kids are still growing and their cartilage hasn't finished maturing from 17-21. That much load combined with daily training can't be great in the long-term. I don't think this means that kids are becoming injury prone as a result of these conditions, but I do think it highlights how much "the genetic lottery" impacts development outcomes.
meanwhile, on the polar opposite side of the spectrum, some people just have tissue, muscles, and bones made out of titanium KING KAZU TO CONTINUE PLAYING AT 58 🤯🇯🇵Japanese striker Kazuyoshi Miura confirms intention to play in 2025 in what will be his 40th season as a professional player. 57-year-old made his debut in 1986—a year before Leo Messi was born ❤️ pic.twitter.com/Ax8cEei17j— Men in Blazers (@MenInBlazers) November 12, 2024