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Euro 2020 Injury Index: Which is the most injury-prone team in the tournament?

Written on 8th June 2021


Star players like Dembele and Gundogan make the ‘most injured eleven’, as Switzerland’s squad is named the most injury-prone team.

Having been postponed by a year due to the Coronavirus pandemic, it is finally time for Euro 2020 to take place, albeit in 2021.

As serious injury experts, we know how damaging injuries can be, so we were intrigued to find out the most injury-prone team, based on records to-date.

Our analysis found that Switzerland’s squad is the most injury-prone, with England stars Tyrone Mings and Luke Shaw featuring among the most injury-prone players in the tournament.

We can also reveal a ‘most injured Euro 2020 eleven’, a ‘most injured England eleven’, plus additional injury data for every single squad in the tournament.

Switzerland Squad Run Risk of Injury

Between Swiss banks and watches, the stereotype goes that anything associated with the Alpine nation runs smoothly.

However, in our analysis, Switzerland came out as the squad most likely to suffer from injury and illness setbacks, with a 13% chance of injury in the Euro 2020 football tournament.

Hungary was at the bottom of the table with only a 5% chance of injury. England’s team (excluding Trent Alexander-Arnold) was mid-table (9%), alongside Scotland (9%) and Wales (10%).

Euro 2020 Player Injury Index 


The Fantastic Five

Most of us want to see the very best players in action when we watch football, and Euro 2020 is set to host some of the best players on the planet. But how likely are we to miss any of them due to injury?

Harry Kane (England): Age 27, Percentage of career missed through injury – 15%
England’s hopes rest on the shoulders of Harry Kane, who is considered to be up there with the best Forwards in Europe. His injury record is somewhat mixed, though, which could be a worry for Gareth Southgate.

Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal): Age 36, Percentage of career missed through injury – 6%
Usually deemed one of the best football players of all time, Ronaldo has a fantastic injury record considering he has made almost 900 club appearances in his time – missing only 6% of his games.

Gareth Bale (Wales): Age 31, Percentage of career missed through injury – 19%
Bale has been known to have injury problems during his career, and the fact that he has missed a fifth of his games reflects this. Wales needs their talisman to stay injury free this summer!

Kylian Mbappe (France): Age 22, Percentage of career missed through injury – 12%
The wonderkid of world football, no-one can catch Mbappe when he is in full flight. The odds of us seeing Mbappe this summer are relatively high, although his injury record isn’t unblemished.

Kevin de Bruyne (Belgium): Age 29, Percentage of career missed through injury – 12%
Manchester City’s own superstar picked up an injury in the Champions League final – will we see him strut his stuff in Euro 2020?

Most Injured Euro 2020 Eleven

Our ‘most injured eleven’ has some familiar names, with four of the eleven having played in the English Premier League during the course of their career.

Manchester City title winner İlkay Gundogan is in the eleven, having missed 28% of his career through injury. Former Bolton and Liverpool keeper Ádám Bogdán has missed a whopping 51% of his career through injury, more than anyone else in the team.

 

 

Most Injured England Eleven

It turns out that Luke Shaw is the England player that is most likely to have time ‘out’ in the tournament, having missed 34% of his career to-date through injury.

Star man Harry Kane is in the eleven, having missed 15% of his career – something that might worry England fans that are hoping to see football ‘come home’!

 

 

 

What We Think

Kim Milan, Head of Personal injury team at Boyes Turner added:

“Everyone is talking about the 2020 UEFA European Football Championship, and there is a lot of debate about potential injuries and what that could mean for each squad’s chance of lifting the trophy.

“As personal injury experts we thought it would be interesting to see if historic injury records can be used to indicate the ‘risk’ to teams.

“While England fans may be concerned about a number of players such as Jordan Henderson, overall, the likelihood that our squad will be significantly affected by injury or illness is lower than that of many other national teams.

“It’s not unusual to sustain an injury as part of a football game, and it does come with the job to an extent, but accidents at work in general are of course best avoided!”

Methodology: 

We collated a list of all players in confirmed squads for Euro 2020 tournament.

We then pulled a data from Transfermarkt.com and Wikipedia for each player in the tournament.

We then analysed the data to determine the most common injuries, the likelihood of each player being injured / off ill, and the positions that are most susceptible to injury.

We compared data by country, player, and position.

Sources: