Did you watch the World Cup? A billion people in the world did. Teams from across the globe came together to compete in one of the largest sporting events outside of the Olympics.
What we call soccer, known elsewhere around the world as football, is the fastest growing sport worldwide, and can be exciting to watch.
It can be a dangerous game, and not just for horror-stricken Brazilian fans after their team crumbled in their final two games.
“Headers” — when players use their heads to hit the ball — are a key part of the game. In professional matches the ball can move at speeds up to 50 mph. The impact of a leather-wrapped ball on the human skull can, it is now clear, cause concussions and lead to permanent brain damage.
How do such head injuries actually affect the brain?
Our brain is made up of millions of nerve cells, or neurons, that are all connected to one another in a vast network of tentacle-like projections.
The brain is suspended in the hard casing of the skull in a bed of watery, nutrient-rich fluid.
Any abrupt movement of the head that causes the brain to shake and hit the inside of the skull can lead to serious bruising of the surface of the brain, and thus damage the neurons.
Once damaged, an inflammatory response takes place that sets off a cascade of events that can begin the process of leaving permanent brain damage.
Nerve cells cannot regrow, regenerate or multiply. When they’re dead, they’re dead. They don’t come back, the damage is permanent, so you want to take good care of the ones you have now.
Brain scans — either computerized tomography, known as CT, or magnetic resonance imaging, MRI — actually show the damage done to the brain of professional soccer players.
Using advanced techniques to monitor the movement of water in healthy neurons, scans can show dark black blotches where the neurons are damaged. Even when a concussion doesn’t occur, the greater the number of head injuries, including from heading the ball, the more brain damage is visible on these scans.
Studies out of Albert Einstein University looked at the evidence of brain damage in soccer players who head the ball and found out that the inflammatory change that results from this activity is identical to what is seen in concussions.
More episodes of heading the ball increased the likelihood of brain changes that can be seen on MRI scans. And these changes correlate with poorer memory scores on testing.
It leads to a question that will be sacrilegious for World Cup fans: Should heading the ball be banned in soccer?
Let’s look at the evidence. For children and teenagers, the consequences of concussions can be lifelong, starting with decreased school performance, mood changes, extreme fatigue and more.
Even after taking a mid-game blow to the head, coaches can be faced with parents who want to make sure their child gets time on the field, or players pushing to get back into the game. Or a coach might just encourage a kid “to just shake it off.”
None of them are likely to fully understand the implications of repetitive head injuries on the growing brain. Poor academic performance can directly affect admission into college, scholarship opportunities and even future job possibilities.
As school starts and practices resume, should coaches and athletes start banning headers on the soccer field?
Schools across the mainland are taking notice. Just last month, Pennsylvania, the Shipley Middle School athletic program announced that heading the ball is no longer a part of soccer practices, and that it is not encouraged in games.
Should Hawaii schools do the same?
As school starts and practices resume, should coaches and athletes start banning headers on the soccer field?
The answer may be found in another sport that has faced the issue, football.
The NFL recently received preliminary approval from a U.S. district judge, Anita Brody, in a class-action lawsuit brought by professional players for long-term damage from repetitive brain trauma.
The settlement, almost a billion dollars, covers only retired players diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which is better known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, dementia, or those with brain damage who committed suicide, including Junior Seau, a former pro who shot himself in the chest when he was 43. He was found by an autopsy to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
It may just be a matter of time before professional soccer players come together and file a lawsuit of their own.
Whether or not that happens at a national level, it isn’t likely to solve the problem in our local schools. There, head injuries from football and soccer will likely become an issue when more people take notice.
When students return to school later this month, some will enroll in athletic programs, including for soccer and football, and protective measures need to be taken to protect their fragile young brains. Helmets may not be enough to prevent serious head injuries and, even when worn, can’t prevent major brain trauma.
The athletic coaches, trainers and players need to look at the data and consider bold moves like changing the game itself to help prevent head injuries.
Even President Obama acknowledged in an interview in 2013 that, given what we now know about the risks of concussions and head injuries, if he had a son, he would think twice before letting him play high school football.
Rather than wait for more evidence from new research to confirm the same for soccer players, we might think twice before we cheer when a guy heads the ball through the goal.
The players who don’t do it might, later on, look back more clearly on the best moments of their careers.
