Foods banned by coaches

Anyone who has played sports at an amateur level, or continues to do so, knows that a minimum of sacrifice - food above all - is essential. If your coach tells you to stop with the maritozzi in the morning before the games, think that in England they would forbid you to use ketchup. Ketchup, for those who don't know, is as sacred a sauce in the UK as mustard. 

Food and food&beverage in general are the new frontier of the hypebeast, who after learning everything there was to know about sneakers and collabo has moved to the kitchen among wines, gin, kobe beef and Michelin stars. A fixation that borders on that of soccer coaches, although for other reasons. Antonio Conte, for example, betrayed England by taking ketchup away from the diet of his players, Steven Gerrard at Aston Villa did the same. Fabio Capello did the same thing when he was the technical commissioner of the English national team, removing butter and ketchup. They say that this is where the internal crisis began, turning the locker room against him and forcing him to resign. 

Because the cultural gap that is created when a foreign coach arrives to work in a new country is not only in the field. It is in the methodology tout court, cuisine included in the price. Antonio Conte also applies the same maniacal precision to schedules and diet as he does to the 13 meters that separate the central defensive player from the halfback. A stance so radical that a company that produces ketchup in England has even bought a page of the newspaper The Independent to send a message of love - and marketing - to Antonio Conte. In this case, eliminating ketchup from the diet is more than just a ban, it means imposing a status and a discipline. These are small revolutions that often save athletes, and impact the performance of many. 

Then you remember Claudio Ranieri at Leicester? Well, he is one who put team building before dietary rigor. He promised his players that if against Crystal Palace they would keep their goal unbeaten, the Roman coach would offer them a pizza. The promise was kept and the bill paid by Sir Claudio, who then took a liking to it. Ranieri's Italian spirit has brought pizza to all of Leicester, from the players to the restaurateurs. There was talk, however, of cultural differences, while one of his rivals of the time, Pep Guardiola, just didn't want to hear about pizza. According to the former Bayern Munich coach, it was the excess of saturated fats that prevented City from winning the 2016 tournament, the one that Leicester surprisingly won. With Ranieri, however, saturated fats were absorbed without too many problems. 

David Moyes banned French fries, a rather unusual food for a sportsman, while one of the most comical stories is that of Arsene Wenger, who for years banned the consumption of chocolate both in the locker room and during meals. Giovanni Trapattoni, instead, removed mushrooms from the plates of the players of the Irish national team without much explanation. A few years ago Jordi Alba explained how since 2014, thanks to the club's nutritionist, he managed to improve his physical condition and avoid injuries. This was while Luis Enrique, his coach at the time, had a predefined food plan that did not match his physique and caloric needs. 

Like the repetitions on the steps or the sessions with the ball, the imposition by a coach of a well-defined diet is a key part of his way of training. As it now happens for the style of outfits or communication before and after the race, in the same way the approach to nutrition is increasingly researched and studied and goes beyond simple idiosyncrasies and superstitions. On the contrary, it is fundamental to recognize oneself and to improve one's work together with that of the team. Because in the end, in soccer, performance is no longer just a question of the field.