TM looks behind the scenes
©Transfermarkt/Hense
“Would I have gotten away with it?” asks Fabian Knottnerus HSV team doctor Dr. Wolfgang Schillings. The content creator from Transfermarkt, himself an amateur player in the Hamburg Oberliga, did a self-experiment: How does a medical check work in professional football? You can see the result and the assessment of the HSV expert and his colleagues in the Athleticum at the Eppendorf University Hospital in the video.
“In professional football there is a lot of money at stake, and the clubs need to know what physical condition the players are in so that they don’t buy a pig in a poke,” says Schillings. The medical check is an important part of processing a transfer in professional football, which is repeatedly shown by failed transfers. This examination usually lasts four to five hours and includes an orthopedic and cardiological check, a bioelectrical impedance analysis, a pulmonary function test with performance diagnostics and a strength test.
“When a player comes for a medical check, we look at the injury history at Transfermarkt and get a good overview,” explains Prof. Dr. Götz Welsch. This would be an indication of possible subsequent injuries. “If I see that a player has a lot of downtime, the likelihood that he will get injured again is even higher.”
Welsch and Schillings provide in-depth insight into the medical check and point out special features. You can find out how Knottnerus fared compared to the professionals, what the HSV team doctors recommend for him and why there is no passing in the classic sense in the video from Transfermarkt TV.
