## 1 Introduction  
Football is an exceptionally popular sport, engaging over 250 million athletes worldwide, with more than 130,000 being professional football players [1]. Since its inception, the sport has been continually evolving, with significant changes observed in recent decades. Both in older and contemporary studies [2; 3] that investigated the evolution of football regarding its physical demands, it is mentioned that the number of sprints, the distance covered at maximum, and high-speed movements have increased. These findings indicate an escalation in intense actions during football matches. Another aspect distinguishing contemporary football from previous decades is the increased number of games involving high-level teams. Players often participate in over 60 matches (league, national cup, European cups, national team), and this number is expected to rise [4]. Consequently, players frequently engage in three matches within an eight-day period. The elevated match frequency, combined with limited recovery time, may predispose players to muscle injuries [5]. Previous studies have suggested that high-level football players may experience two injuries during a sports season. Therefore, for a team with 25 football players, approximately 50 injuries are calculated, of which 28% are overuse injuries [6]. A recent review [7] reported that muscle injuries in European professional football result in a loss of 34.7 days for every 1000 h of participation, with a cost of EUR 203,620. The total cost of injuries in the top five European football leagues for the 2021/2022 season exceeded EUR 600 million [8]. In addition to the economic cost, teams must cope with the limited availability of injured players. A previous study indicated a positive relationship between player availability and team success and ranking [9]. As mentioned earlier, the combination of numerous matches and restricted recovery time may increase the likelihood of injuries [10]. To mitigate these injuries, the management of players' training load has been proposed [11]. Various methods have been developed to measure/estimate the external or internal load (heart rate monitoring (HR), rating of perceived exertion (RPE), and running distances covered at different speeds: total distance (TD), low-speed distance (LSD), high-speed distance, (HSD), sprint distance (SD), accelerations (ACC), and decelerations (DEC)) [12; 13; 14]. Load is categorized into internal and external loads. External load can be defined as the sum of actions completed by the player during a match and/or training (e.g., running 3000 m). Internal load can be defined as the physiological response of the body to the external load (e.g., heart rate). A model for monitoring the load was proposed by researchers over the past decade, showing a correlation with the occurrence of non-contact muscle injuries [11; 15]. According to this model, the ratio of recent load (last week) to chronic load (last four weeks) is calculated. For example, if the total distance in the last week was 20,000 m, while in the previous three weeks, it was 18,000 m, 21,000 m, and 19,000 m, respectively, then the ratio is calculated as follows: ACWR = 20,000/average (20,000 + 18,000 + 21,000 + 19,000) = 1.03. Researchers suggest that when this ratio exceeds 1.5, the risk of player injury increases [16]. However, over time, sports scientists have tested modified models, considering the last two or three weeks in chronic load (referred to as ACWR 1:2 or 1:3) [12] or excluding the week of acute load from the chronic load [17]. The ACWR has been utilized in team sports such as football [12], rugby [15], and Australian football [17]. In the literature, studies both supporting and refuting the relationship between the ACWR and non-contact injuries exist [11; 12; 18; 19; 20; 21]. More specifically, there are studies in team sports reporting that they observed a relationship between an increase in the ACWR value and the likelihood of injuries [11; 12].