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Elite sport rarely stays in one place for long, and the work of a sports medicine team travels with it. Ahead of a Gold Cup 2025 fixture against Duhok, Dr. Haytham Salem was with the Al Nasr FC team at Erbil Airport — a reminder that much of the work supporting a team happens well before a ball is kicked.
Why travel matters in elite sport
Away fixtures introduce a set of challenges that home matches simply do not carry. Travel fatigue, disrupted routines, unfamiliar surroundings, and tighter turnaround times between arrival and kick-off all place additional demands on players — and on the medical staff responsible for their welfare.
Managing these factors is as much a part of sports medicine as pitch-side care during the match itself. Ensuring players arrive in the best possible physical condition, monitoring recovery during travel, and adapting preparation routines to account for a new environment all form part of the groundwork that takes place long before kick-off.
Preparing for a competitive fixture
A Gold Cup match against a side like Duhok carries its own competitive intensity, and preparation in the days leading up to it reflects that. For a medical team, this means close attention to player fitness, ongoing management of any minor knocks carried from previous fixtures, and ensuring the squad is in the best possible condition to compete once they reach the pitch.
None of this is visible in a final result. It exists in the background — in airport terminals, team hotels, and training sessions — long before supporters see the team take to the field.
A reminder of the wider role of sports medicine
Moments like this one in Erbil are a useful reminder that elite sports medicine is not confined to treatment rooms or matchday touchlines. It extends into the logistics of travel, the management of fatigue, and the ongoing oversight of player welfare across an entire fixture — home or away.
For Dr. Salem, continuing to work alongside teams in this capacity reflects a consistent thread throughout his career: supporting athletes not only in the moments that make headlines, but in all the preparation that makes those moments possible.