There's a big game coming up. Start of the season, top game, cup game, final game. Many footballers want to prepare well before these games in order to be 120% ready for kick-off. But what does the “ perfect ” match preparation look like? Do they even exist?
To start with this topic, let's go one day before the actual game day. This day should be given much more weight than the match day itself. What should you take into account?
The body's energy level depends on many factors, but it is not even possible for a professional to address all of them (apart from exceptions like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi). The following blog post explains the most important points in detail.
The first important point to consider is diet . For a footballer, this should look no different around match day than it does on other days of the week. Mainly carbohydrates should be eaten. Rice, oatmeal, pasta, potatoes. They provide you with the energy reserves you need for 90 minutes.
You should also keep the fiber within the normal range, as consuming too much fiber can lead to severe flatulence and thus problems in the digestive tract the following day.
Proteins and fats should be consumed moderately, like any other day.
You can find exact figures on the quantities of the respective nutrients in our 360nutrition guide , which will soon be available on our website.
The energy stores are thus filled and trouble-free digestion is ensured. So we move on to training before match day.
Training the day before the game is more for the psyche and less for achieving an optimal level. It should be short (approx. 45-60 minutes) with lots of playful aspects.
High exertion such as sprint training or very demanding strength exercises should be avoided. This is because the muscles need too much time to recover from the stresses mentioned and be back to 100% around 24 hours later. Therefore, training before day X is ideal to get a good feeling and stay in rhythm.
The last thing a footballer should pay attention to is the night before the game, more specifically sleep .
Sleep is clearly the most important of all factors, because sleep is recovery and recovery is regeneration . While you sleep, the body processes the entire previous day, both the training completed and the food consumed. If sleep is too short, digestion cannot function optimally and the carbohydrates consumed cannot be stored completely. Therefore, the necessary energy cannot be accessed on match day. In addition, due to the shorter sleep phase, the muscle will not recover as it should in order to be at a top level on game day. The study also shows that there is a correlation, i.e. a connection between the risk of getting injured and poor sleep quality or short sleep duration. But how long should I sleep the day before the game? The recommendation from 360footballsupplements is 8-10 hours .
However, there is no such thing as absolutely “ perfect ” preparation, because there is always something that can be improved. However, if you keep these points in mind, you will have laid a solid foundation for achieving your fullest potential in the game.
You can find the continuation of this blog ( T he perfect match preparation – the match day) in the next blog post.
Sources:
- Andressa Silva, Fernanda V. Narciso, Igor Soalheiro, Fernanda Viegas, Luisa SN Freitas, Adriano Lima, Bruno A. Leite, Haroldo C. Aleixo, Rob Duffield, Marco T. de Mello. Poor Sleep Quality's Association wirh soccer injuries: Preliminary Data, Human Kinetics 2019
