Voor de mensen die mij vorige week aan het bashen waren omdat ik Milan Labs durfde te bekritiseren:
Blog: The myth of Milan Lab
David Beckham’s injury is precisely what Milan Lab was created to prevent, notes Susy Campanale
If I were a Milan player right now, I’d be worried. The spate of serious injuries at the club hit its nadir in a week that ended Alessandro Nesta and David Beckham’s seasons. Alexandre Pato has played a couple of games this year due to a recurring muscular problem that he can’t seem to shake. All of this is what the much-vaunted Milan Lab was created in order to prevent.
“This structure allows us to optimise the performances of players thanks to our exclusive and innovative PAS (Predictive Analysis Server), a system that works to prevent and signal possible risks for a player.” The Milan Lab takes daily results of various physical tests and runs them through computer programmes to give a constantly up-to-date idea of fitness and stop a player from pushing himself too far if there is the risk of injury.
You’d think such an advanced system would notice that an Achilles tendon was about to snap. Not just tear, oh no, it broke completely. That is not an easy thing for a tendon to do. This is the same Milan Lab that failed to notice Ronaldo’s knee tendon would give way completely.
Even worse, Nesta revealed that the initial damage to his knee was done in the penultimate game he featured in. Yet Milan Lab cleared him to play again three days later and to visit Manchester before eventually wrecking it completely in training. Kaka had already highlighted problems with the Rossoneri’s fitness staff last season, as he made more progress in five days in Brazil than in several weeks at Milanello.
I wouldn’t mind so much, after all it’s no worse than the Juventus injury record, if it weren’t for the bragging about this state of the art technology. In the light of the latest embarrassing incidents, fans are bound to feel even more bemused by the Aly Cissokho saga. In the summer this valuable full-back’s signature was announced before Milan pulled out, citing problems with his teeth.
Maybe Milan Lab just needs to be tinkered with? In 2008 they announced a new partnership with Microsoft, so they might be waiting for new drivers to work with Windows 7? Or perhaps this has all been an elaborate ruse. Distracted by players running, jumping and doing squat thrusts, eventually the little piece of paper will pop out of the giant machinery telling us the meaning of life is 42. At least then Milan Lab would’ve been good for something.
Liverpool wel in de slechtste situatie, met hun match(en) meer gespeeld. En met Man Utd komend weekend voor de boeg.
