A chat with club doctor Sinisa Petkovic

Halfway through the season, Partizan is top of the league and still competing on three fronts. Overall fitness is one of the key contributors to team`s success with only a small number of injuries suffered in the past six months.

We spoke to club doctor Sinisa Petkovic on Partizan medical team battles and upcoming challenges.

“This half-season was extremely strenuous with squadsters constantly in the training mode. We rarely had a full weeks break between two matches and such pace can fall hard on you, especially with a lack of sleep involved due to a lot of travels and sleep is quite important prevention-wise”, said Sinisa Petkovic.

“Coordination between coach and medical team has to be on a daily basis. After the travels, we talk about giving a day-off to the players or having a recovery session in the afternoon hours. Those training sessions consist of medical room part followed by fitness work on the training pitch and return to medical room for further treatments”.

Outside Lazar Markovic`s long-term collarbone injury, all other injuries over the 35 official games and hundreds of training sessions were muscle related.

“Considering the number of games played, injuries were far from significant and they were mainly muscle related, as expected. Injury Markovic suffered is the one you couldn`t have influence on. We had players Covid-19 positive although most of the team is vaccinated. You have a couple of months with no positive cases and then you get small epidemics with two or three players on Covid. But, that`s normal considering how much we traveled this season. We are constantly surrounded by people and you can always get a case or two, regardless of precaution taken”.

When such cases happen, Petkovic says Partizan medical team is well-prepared to react.

“Covid-19 positive player has to go through lab and cardio checks and after a negative test lungs x-ray, electrocardiogram and stress test follow. Only after all that and with cardiologist`s approval, player can start light training, practice intensity added gradually”, said Petkovic.