What Are the Odds?

After an already injury-plagued beginning of the season, news that El Shaarawy had picked up a knock to his knee over the weekend while on international duty was discouraging. But followed by the news of Robinho being out ten more days due to a thigh strain acquired in training at Milanello (without even having come back from injury,) I think that there is now a general resignation amongst Milan fans that we will suffer this injury plague yet again this season. Yes, the same plague that saw our players miss 307 matches in Serie A due to injury in only one year. And thus I suggest we change the saying, “Il club piú titolato al mondo” (the club with the most titles in the world) to “Il club piú infortunato al mondo” (the club with the most injuries in the world.) No one can touch us on that one.

Our true claim to fame

Please understand, I am not trying to make fun of this curse. It is very hard for me as a fan to accept these injuries on top of everything else this year. But at some point, we have to be able to sit back and accept it and maybe even have a laugh, because the opposite reaction would simply lead to madness. (Or perhaps I have already gone mad?)

Games missed due to injury in Serie A by club since 2007
(via @Milanello)

Anyway, today, I thought we would have a bit of fun. With the help of the staff at fantasyseriea.com, we’ve come up with betting odds on which players are most and least likely to get injured from our squad. Feel free to review them and place your imaginary “bets” in the comments section. Then we can watch to see whose imaginary money grows the most throughout the season.

Odds for players likely to spend the most time injured

Pato            1.4

Boateng     2.1

Robinho     2.5

Muntari      2.8

Ambrosini  3.5

Odds for players likely to spend the least time injured

Amelia       2

Carmona   2.3

Valoti         2.7

Niang         3.5

Nocerino    4

So for example, if you put an imaginary $50 on Pato to be the most injured, your imaginary payout would be $70, if that is in fact true at the end of the season. Odds include known injuries to date from the beginning of the season.

Again, no one wants our team to be injured, but it is out of our control. If it is going to happen anyway, why not at least see if we can predict the healthiest and the most injury prone in the squad? Pato is a bit too obvious, and yet almost a sure thing. Amelia, Carmona, Valoti, and Niang are unlikely to see much playing time, but they could still get injured in training. Who knows? Maybe our little imaginary “bets” will help break the curse…. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll go back to being known for being Il club piú titolato al mondo like we should be.

This post inspired by the music of Andrea Bocelli and Josh Groban’s “The Prayer”

Our next match is

Lazio vs. Milan

Saturday, October 20 • 20:45 CEST (2:45pmEDT)