Football Injuries: A Bibliometric Analysis

Purpose: сonducting an Analytical Review of Publications on Football Injuries Using the VOSviewer Tool in the PubMed Database. Material and Methods. A bibliometric analysis of data from the PubMed database was conducted as of December 25, 2024, to create a selection of studies. The search used the phrase «football injuries». Publications from the last five years (2020–2024) were analyzed. The VOSviewer 1.6.19 software was employed for keyword analysis, direct citation analysis, bibliometric mapping, cluster density visualization, and citation weight evaluation. Results: the VOSviewer 1.6.19 software identified 2359 publications. A decline in the number of publications has been observed since 2021. A total of 2359 scientific works were found between 2020 and December 25, 2024. The analysis involved 430 authors with a connection strength greater than 5. Twenty-five clusters were identified, characterized by 2986 links and a total link strength of 8684. The most prolific authors include: Mccrea Michael (45), Jones Ben (39), Meehan William (36), Guskiewicz Kevin (34). For network visualization, 585 elements (keywords) were selected and grouped into 8 clusters. The network consists of 25165 links with a total weight of 125170. The most prominent studies focus on the following keywords: «humans», «male», «football», and «athletic injuries». Conclusions. The bibliometric analysis of publications confirms the relevance of research on football injuries. A significant number of publications indexed in the PubMed database have been observed over the last five years. Eight clusters highlighting the primary research directions were identified. It was noted that most recent keywords reflect general concepts, while older publications focus on more specific studies. The main body of publications is directed towards studying various injuries and diseases, as well as their prevention.