A commentary of factors related to player availability and its influence on performance in elite team sports

A commentary of factors related to player availability and its influence on performance in elite team sports

The highest level of performance in elite team sports is being affected by factors like trips, congested fixtures, injuries, and more recently COVID-19, which also implies substantial changes in training and competitive settings. From this current scenario, a series of different topics have to be integrated into the agenda of elite team sports clubs, such as the need to deal with constant alterations in players performance. All these considerations and changes are increasing the frequency of unavailability of players in the squads. For this reason, a new concept should be introduced into the performance equation, responding to the fact that, at this time, player availability and readiness “on the bench” (being injury-free to be able to take part during a match) may be more important than peak performance. In summary, the current times seem to clearly suggest that player availability, namely, “keeping the athlete’s injury-free and ready to participate in competition”, is sometimes more important than achieving higher individual performance peaks.