Dr Fadi Maayah
Curtin University Australia
Jordan Daily - Jordanian football is facing a challenge extending beyond tactics and results. As domestic, continental and international schedules overlap, player availability is becoming increasingly important in the Jordanian Pro League title race. Recent injuries involving Anas Al-Awdat and Ahmad Ersan of Al-Faisaly, alongside goalkeeper Yazeed Abu Layla of Al-Hussein Irbid, highlight a broader question: are clubs doing enough to monitor workload, recovery and physical readiness during congested periods?
The adductors contribute to sprinting, kicking and rapid changes of direction. Under accumulated fatigue and insufficient recovery, maintaining strength becomes critical.
Injuries can change tactics
For Al-Faisaly, Al-Awdat's reported injury removes an attacking threat. His acceleration, one-versus-one ability and capacity to exploit space during transitions provide an attacking dimension. Ersan's reported recurrent adductor/thigh problem adds challenges because his creativity, combination play, set-piece delivery and shooting help connect midfield and attack.
Al-Hussein Irbid faces a different problem with Abu Layla's reported injury. Modern goalkeepers influence more than shot-stopping. They organise defensive structures, control space behind the back line and contribute to distribution and build-up play.
These absences demonstrate how availability can affect tactical options.
Why adductor problems emerge
There is rarely one cause behind a football injury. Players may compete every 72 to 96 hours while balancing league fixtures, continental competition, international duties, training and travel. Reduced recovery, previous injury, accumulated match exposure, travel and football-specific demands interact.
Travel can disrupt sleep, routines and recovery. Clubs therefore need to move beyond simply counting kilometres.
From GPS to high-performance monitoring
GPS technologies such as Catapult and STATSports can monitor high-speed running, sprint exposure, accelerations and decelerations. Yet external workload is only part of the picture.
High-performance technologies such as VALD ForceFrame provide another layer by assessing hip adduction and abduction strength. ForceFrame protocols can report left and right maximum force, percentage imbalance and the relationship between hip abduction and adduction strength.
The greatest value comes from repeated testing. Clubs can establish individual baselines and reassess players during congestion, rehabilitation and return to performance. This changes the question from "Is this player strong enough?" to "Has this player's strength profile changed meaningfully from their normal level?"
A practical monitoring system could combine GPS workload, match minutes, adductor strength, previous injury, wellness, sleep, travel exposure and medical assessment. No single metric can reliably predict exactly when an injury will occur. The aim is to identify changes and support decisions.
Why eccentric training matters
Monitoring must lead to appropriate training. The adductors are frequently required to produce force while lengthening, known as eccentric muscle action. Developing eccentric strength is therefore highly relevant to physical preparation and rehabilitation.
The Copenhagen Adduction Exercise is useful. Research in young sub-elite footballers has reported substantial improvements in eccentric hip-adduction strength following a structured eight-week Copenhagen program.
However, one exercise is not a complete solution. Rehabilitation should progressively restore the demands required for football. A practical progression may move from isometric strength to controlled concentric and eccentric loading, increased eccentric work, running, acceleration and deceleration, change of direction, kicking and finally football-specific high-intensity activity.
This is where objective testing becomes especially valuable. A player can be assessed using VALD ForceFrame, complete an individualised strength program and then be reassessed using the same protocol.
The model is simple: Measure, monitor, train, reassess, progress, and return to performance.
Technology must change decisions
Purchasing GPS units, VALD systems or other high-performance technologies will not automatically prevent injuries. Technology becomes valuable when information changes practice.
That requires collaboration between coaches, sport scientists, strength and conditioning coaches, physiotherapists and medical practitioners. The key question after collecting data should be: what decision will we make differently because of this information?
Decisions might involve modifying training, recovery, strength work or match exposure.
Jordanian clubs therefore have an opportunity to move from reacting to injuries towards integrated performance management based on systematic workload monitoring, individual strength profiling, eccentric training, intelligent recovery and evidence-informed rehabilitation.
The championship may be won in the recovery room
Modern football is not won through tactics alone. It also depends on keeping key players available.
For Jordanian football, the current adductor injury discussion should become an opportunity to strengthen the integration of sports science into everyday coaching. GPS can quantify important external demands. VALD ForceFrame can contribute objective measures of physical capacity. Eccentric training can help prepare the adductors for football's demanding actions.
But the real competitive advantage lies in connecting those elements and turning data into better decisions. In a congested calendar, recovery is not simply time off, squad rotation is not necessarily weakness, and sports science is no longer an optional addition to coaching.
Ultimately, the principle is simple: the best tactical plan in football has limited value if the players required to execute it are unavailable.
