Examination of the relationship between functional movement screening test scores and lower extremity injury risk of the elite candidate male footballers playing in U19 and U13 groups

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between the functional movement screen test scores of elite male football players playing in the U19 and U13 groups and the risk of lower extremity injury. The study was conducted with the retrospective data of 13-19 age group male elite candidate athletes (n=41) playing football in the development leagues determined by the Turkish Football Federation, affiliated to the Galatasaray Football Academy, in the 2018-2019 season. Functional movement screen (FMS) battery was used to determine the functional movement levels of the football players. The movements in the applied test are, respectively, deep squat, hurdle step, in-line lunge, shoulder mobility, active straight leg raise, trunk stability push-up, rotary stability. Participants were informed about the test before the measurements began, and then demonstrated as a practice. Each movement was repeated three times during the application of the test. The scores that can be obtained from the test range from 0 to 21. In the study, there was a positive and weak correlation between age and deep squat (r = .368; p<0.05), positive and moderate correlation between active straight leg raise (r = .474; p<0.05), positive and weak correlation between rotary stability (r = .363; p<0.05), and a positive and weak (r = .400; p<0.05) correlation was detected between total FMS score. When the FMS scores of the U13 football players were examined, it was seen that the highest score was shoulder mobility, the lowest score was the active straight leg raise test, while the U19 footballers got the highest score from shoulder mobility and the lowest score was from the deep squat test. As a result of the study, it was determined that the deep squat, straight forward, active straight leg raising, rotary stability and total FMS score of the U19 football players were significantly higher than the U13 football players (p<0.05). In addition, the total FMS scores of the injured players were found to be lower and below 14 points compared to the players who did not have any injuries.