Tag: England

  • Stress & sugary drinks – study shows 75% of academy players have gum disease

    Stress & sugary drinks – study shows 75% of academy players have gum disease

    Some academy footballers in England have been left unable to train because of dental problems, according to a new study which found three-quarters of participants are suffering with gum disease.

    The study from researchers at University College London (UCL) asked 160 academy players representing 10 English football clubs from the Premier League, Championship and Women’s Super League to answer a questionnaire about their oral health and its impact on sporting performance, alongside a clinical assessment by a dentist.

    It found young male and female players are more likely to have major problems with tooth decay and poor oral hygiene than non-footballers of a similar age.

    Dr Saul Konviser, one of the authors of the study published in the British Medical Journal, told the BBC there now needs to be a “multi-factor” approach in order to deal with the issue, including greater education on the cardiovascular issues linked with oral diseases and more routine dental care for players.

    “We feel this is a great opportunity to take this evidence so we can advise and support medical teams at clubs,” he said.

    “I think it is an opportunity for sporting bodies to take action – we don’t want negative dental health to impact sporting performance. There needs to be greater understanding that mouth is part of the body.

    “We had players at screenings complaining of dental pain, bleeding gums, saying they were unable to train at some points because of dental infections. Once there has been trauma there can be ongoing problems, including with their ability and willingness to compete.”

    Factors identified included poor hygiene habits such as a lack of brushing and flossing, high levels of sugary sports and fizzy drink consumption, and stress – possibly due to a high-performance environment – which can cause teeth grinding and lead to decay.

    The study also suggested some cases of tooth wear were related to gastric acids, with dental screenings revealing patterns similar to those from acid reflux and even in eating disorders like bulimia.

    The study is the first to investigate oral health among footballers aged 16 to 18, and the first to include female players.

    Dr Konviser said he was “surprised” by the comparatively high levels of decay and disorders, given these are athletes in elite sporting set-ups whose health is being constantly assessed.

    “There are many possible causes of wear, and we are not there to diagnose anything but to flag problems to medical teams,” he said. “It was surprising to see the prevalence, especially among younger age groups.”

    Only 76% of players confirmed that they brush their teeth twice a day, compared to 81% of 15-year-olds in England.

    It found 76.8% of the players in the study had gingivitis – inflammation of the gums – compared to just 40% of 15-year-olds in England, with 22.5% showing signs of irreversible gum disease.

    Visible decay that required treatment was present in 31.2% of players, compared to 24% of 15-year-olds across England, while moderate to severe levels of tooth wear was seen in 15.5% of participants.

    The study found players were relying on a pre-season check-up rather than visiting the dentist regularly, with one in five having not attended the dentist in more than two years.

    It said findings correspond to high levels of oral disease in male senior players identified in a previous UCL-led study in 2016, which found football players’ oral health was 10% worse than average for men of the same age.

    Dr Konviser said clubs had been “very receptive” of the study – which was initially conceived in 2019 but delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, then took several years to come to fruition – and called on those clubs and the FA to take a “top-down approach” to making “sports dentistry routine among players”.

    Among solutions suggested are players rinsing their mouths with water after consuming energy drinks, and being encouraged to go to regular dental check-ups.

  • England guaranteed fifth Champions League spot

    England guaranteed fifth Champions League spot

    England are guaranteed a minimum of five teams in the Champions League next season after Arsenal’s victory over Real Madrid in the first leg of the quarter-finals.

    One win, in any of the three European competitions, would have secured the fifth place for England.

    Two extra spots are awarded to countries based on their ranking in Uefa’s coefficient table.

    Liverpool and Arsenal look set to finish in the top in the Premier League, with Nottingham Forest, Chelsea, Newcastle, Manchester City, Aston Villa, Brighton and Bournemouth, who sit 10th, all separated by 12 points.

    England could have as many as seven teams in the Champions League in 2025-26 if Aston Villa win the competition this year, but fail to qualify through the Premier League, and if Manchester United or Tottenham win the Europa League.

    Italy are second in the coefficient rankings, with Spain and Germany behind.

    How do countries earn an extra Champions League spot for next season?

    Each country’s league earns a coefficient ranking based on how their teams perform in Uefa’s three men’s club competitions: the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League.

    Coefficient points are earned through match results – two for a win and one for a draw.

    The points earned by clubs from the same domestic league are added up and divided by the number of clubs the league has in Europe.

    For example, if the Premier League had 100 points, that would be split by the number of teams playing in Europe (seven), giving England a coefficient of 14.28.

    This season, bonus points are available to clubs playing in the Champions League, which is advantageous to leagues with more clubs competing in it, such as Germany and Italy.

    Countries that finish in the coefficient table’s top two earn an additional Champions League spot for the following season.

    Those spots are awarded to the teams who finish in the first position below the standard Champions League allocation in those leagues.

    In the Premier League, the top four clubs automatically qualify for the Champions League via league position, so any additional place would go to the team in fifth.

    Additional spots for the 2024-25 Champions League were given to Bologna and Borussia Dortmund, who finished fifth in Serie A and the Bundesliga respectively.

    What about the Europa League winners?

    England could end up with seven Champions League teams next season.

    The winners of the Europa League, as well as the Champions League, are granted a spot.

    Under previous rules, any single league could only have a maximum of five clubs in the Champions League. However, that rule has been scrapped.

    This season, any team who win the Europa League or Champions League but do not qualify for the Champions League via their domestic league position will go into the Champions League.

    If Aston Villa win the Champions League and finish outside the top five in the Premier League then that will give English clubs another spot.

    Also, Manchester United and Tottenham, both languishing in the bottom half of the Premier League, are in the quarter-finals of the Europa League and if either of them win the tournament that would be another team from England playing in next season’s elite European competition.

  • Root on a mission to bring more to England’s pot

    Root on a mission to bring more to England’s pot

    Amid troubled times we look to familiar comforts – that old blanket, your favourite food, Joe Root.

    England begin their Champions Trophy campaign against Australia on Saturday in a sticky spot, having lost four 50-over series in a row. They can at least take something from the fact their most successful batter is with them.

    “I never retired,” says Root, who returned for his first one-day internationals since the 2023 World Cup in India earlier this month.

    “I have never said I don’t want to play the format.”

    Root, sitting in England’s team hotel in Lahore, laughs when asked whether there was a crucial chat with captain Jos Buttler or coach Brendon McCullum to set his return in stone.

    “I don’t think there needs to be either really,” Root says. “I don’t think any player has a divine right for selection.”

    The Champions Trophy is one piece of silverware missing from England’s trophy cabinet. It also marks the start of the journey to the 2027 World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.

    Root has said previously he would like to be involved in that tournament, which is expected to conclude a month before his 37th birthday. There, should they qualify, England will attempt to win back the trophy they won in 2019 but gave up disappointingly in 2023.

    “Obviously you’ve got perform, you’ve got to consistently go and do your job and offer something to the team and make sure you’re making it a better team, not holding it back,” Root says.

    “I’ve never been one to look too far ahead and try and say ‘I want to play until here or to then’. You’ve got to earn the right and you’ve got to keep putting into the pot.”

    To even consider he could ever hold England back sums up Root’s modesty.

    Whether as young prankster, captain or back-in-the-ranks experienced pro, no batter has put more runs into England’s pot across all formats than the Yorkshireman.

    Yet even Root has been unable to escape the issues that have dogged England’s batting in one-day internationals since their win in 2019.

    Starved of opportunity, he averages 29.92 across the five and a half years and has not made a century.

    At the World Cup in India he made three fifties but, like his team-mates, could not prevent England’s spiral.

    “Anyone that says at any stage of their career ‘I have got no regrets’, ‘I wouldn’t change anything’, I think they are lying,” says Root, who also made double figures in all three innings in India this month but returned a highest score of 69.

    “You would change certain things, but in terms of how I approach this tournament, no, not really. You know what’s happened has happened.”

    Root was speaking shortly after England trained for the first time since arriving in Lahore.

    He had two turns in the nets before he and fellow batter Harry Brook threw balls to each other on a strip of astroturf away from the rest of England’s group.

    It is why Root disagrees so strongly with the suggestion England did not train hard enough in India – claims made by his former international team-mate Kevin Pietersen.

    “They don’t come to training,” Root says. “They don’t see what we do and how we operate.”

    But Root would not argue that England have struggled to find rhythm in their 50-over batting.

    If Tests are about scoring as many runs as possible and T20s scoring as quickly as possible, ODIs sit somewhere in between.

    Supporters encourage Root to ‘just play like Joe Root’ in a bid to regain his top form. He would say it is not quite as simple.

    “I can’t think of any two innings that I have played that have been exactly the same,” he says.

    “I think the art of batting is assessing the conditions in front of you, managing the situation that you’re presented with and consistently making good decisions under pressure.”

    Root’s last ODI century came during a group-stage win over West Indies in the 2019 World Cup.

    That day Eoin Morgan went in the back, Jason Roy twinged a hamstring, Chris Woakes batted at number three and England still won by eight wickets with 16.5 overs to spare.

    Things have changed since.

    McCullum and Buttler are leading the new era while attempting to follow on from arguably England’s greatest cricketing side. It was never going to be easy.

    To some that constant comparison would weigh heavy.

    “I wouldn’t say it’s a negative,” Root, one of five surviving World Cup winners in this squad, says.

    “That team will have inspired a lot of this team. There’s a number of guys in this squad and in and around it that would have still been in school finishing their GCSEs or starting out on their journey as professional cricketers.”

    The reduction of international ODIs – Root played 89 matches between the 2015 and 2019 World Cups but only 31 matches since – and the downgrading of England’s domestic competition continues to push against their pursuit to return to the top.

    Root called for players to be given more regular opportunities in 2023 and while little has changed, he still thinks England can come again.

    “It’s just going to take something different,” he says.

    “There isn’t that opportunity to do that [play as regularly] nowadays but it doesn’t mean we can’t be as successful as that team.

    “There’s just different challenges that we’re going to have to overcome.

    “Can we find a way to speed that process up by having good, smart conversations and using our experience and share them so that when you get to the crunch moments within big games you get the team across the line?

    “I think we’ve got the right players that are able to do that and we’ve certainly got the talent.”