Team Pre-Season Meal

VeevaVee

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Found someone who has no clue how athletes work. Ronaldo takes it to the extreme, in reality what he does is almost pointless. Look at GOATs in other sports. MJ literally smoked regularly. LeBron drinks wine (too much according to some). Even Tom Brady enjoys food (but has a weird diet). Eating a cheeseburger a few times a month isn't affecting their careers.
'Almost pointless' and Ronaldo still being one of the fittest and best players in the world at 36, where most top players have long dropped off, doesn't seem to match up.
 

VeevaVee

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Obviously, an occasional cheat meal is not a problem. Neither you nor I know if this was the case here.
Judging by what Lee Grant is saying there, that's definitely not the case. That they're all left to their own devices usually eating shite the night before the weekend game is mental. No wonder our team became so unfit for a while.

Yet another case where top level football isn't the fine tuned peak performance in every aspect thing it's made out to be by many.
 

edcunited1878

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Judging by what Lee Grant is saying there, that's definitely not the case. That they're all left to their own devices usually eating shite the night before the weekend game is mental. No wonder our team became so unfit for a while.

Yet another case where top level football isn't the fine tuned peak performance in every aspect thing it's made out to be by many.
I don't believe United became unfit because they had too many brownies the night before a match. That's called fatigue and that is much more real than top PL sides having a poor diet and not performing week in, week out.

There are professional athletes who are on a varying spectrum. Ronaldo is the extreme model, then there's a Giggs or Beckham, then you'll have your Rooney, then Anderson.

At the end of the day, players know how they perform to their best ability, especially when they are top players. Having a top diet during the season versus a very good one doesn't make up the gap between actual ability.

A singular fecking pre-season meal like these players had when you're doing double sessions and excreting so much fluids and depriving your body of so much nutrients....is not going to make or break them.
 

mariachi-19

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I really couldn’t give a shit about American “athletes”, whether they’re goats or sheep. I can tell you for a fact that sports scientists unanimously agree that diet and nutrition can be optimised for peak performance. And the meals in the OP are far from fecking optimal.

Obviously, an occasional cheat meal is not a problem. Neither you nor I know if this was the case here.
What should he considered though is whether those meals were pub style meals or professionally cooked meals with athletes in mind. Ie using lean ingredients, less sugar etc than what we are probably exposed to in everyday life. I would say that was probably the case. There’s enough videos on YouTube for American sports program which go through kitchens and explain the diets and how they try to make healthy food appetising for the athletes.

it’s not hard to make a healthy cheeseburger, it just tastes like arse compared to a McDonald’s or Burger King to some. Less processed shit and more natural ingredients with actual nutritional value.
 
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mariachi-19

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Ronaldo also likes to look good with his shirt off, a lot of his diet is for a beach body. So he has to suffer through his meals. Micheal phelps use to eat a carb loaded diet filled with pizza, pasta, and burgers. Money Mayweather diet was Burger King, BBQ and Mountain Dew. These guys burn crazy amounts of calories, eating junk food isn't going to bother them if they put in the work.
Different athletes. You need to remember that Phelps was drawing on in excess of 7-10k in calories a day for his training.

I’ll tell you one thing, eating that many calories a day eating like Ronaldo is a fecking chore. That’s like 20 chicken breasts and 30 eggs. Meanwhile you can go to McDonald’s and get a large quarter pound meal which is 2k calories…

No disrespect to footballers but the most a pro footballer would burn in a day is 5k calorie burn and that’s being extremely generous (probably closer to 3-4K). 2-3 hour training sessions a day and then they get told to park up.

They’re extremely fit athletes, but their fitness is different.
 

VeevaVee

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I don't believe United became unfit because they had too many brownies the night before a match. That's called fatigue and that is much more real than top PL sides having a poor diet and not performing week in, week out.
Neither do I. That they're left to their own devices to choose what they eat, included any amount of shite they fancy before a game, is another indicator as to why it happend though. It had nothing to do with fatigue. They were clearly physically unfit in comparison to most of the league because they weren't handheld like they are in every other aspect of their lives. They certainly do not know how to perform to the best of their ability if left to their own devices. The minority that do are night and day. It's obvious who those ones are every time.
 

meamth

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You bunch of food snobs. Let 'em eat their plain cheeseburgers and well done steaks in peace. Maybe that's the style of cooking that Greenwood is used to.

Not everyone wants a barely cooked steak. I eat mine medium but would much prefer to have a well done steak than a rare one.
Still irks me...the science behind a good steak is the juiciness.

Well done steak, you suck the juices dry out of the steak, criminal. Imagine they use Black Angus? Wagyu? That piece of steak deserves some justice.

EDIT:
If I'm the chef, I'll ask my sous chef to take that frozen buffalo meat out from India. That is for Greenwood.
 

UnitedRepublic

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They aren’t, how many times a player rotates in a basketball game, I played both football and basketball when I was in school and football was more physical than basketball.
Yes I agree I’ve played both aswell Football takes a lot more but running indoors is exhausting in a different way aswell, to make a fair comparison futsal is more taxing than basketball.
 

Jibbs

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What should he considered though is whether those meals were pub style meals or professionally cooked meals with athletes in mind. Ie using lean ingredients, less sugar etc than what we are probably exposed to in everyday life. I would say that was probably the case. There’s enough videos on YouTube for American sports program which go through kitchens and explain the diets and how they try to make healthy food appetising for the athletes.

it’s not hard to make a healthy cheeseburger, it just tastes like arse compared to a McDonald’s or Burger King to some. Less processed shit and more natural ingredients with actual nutritional value.
A cheeseburger can be very healthy if made with the right ingredients.
 

elmo

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The rest and recuperation in between those games makes the difference, same as the rest during the games. Basketball players are indeed excellent athletes, but when it comes to fitness footballers are on another level. It's just the nature of the sport.
I think you should just admit you know feck all about NBA and stop making shit up.

NBA teams play more in 2 weeks than footballers play in a month, but sure they've loads of time to recover compared to footballers :houllier:
 

Baneofthegame

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I think you should just admit you know feck all about NBA and stop making shit up.

NBA teams play more in 2 weeks than footballers play in a month, but sure they've loads of time to recover compared to footballers :houllier:
Well, I’d argue it’s fairly similar, over the course of a season without cup games NBA players would player 500 (essentially) minutes more.

You also get essentially unlimited subs, blowouts, “load management” games etc.

That’s not to say either are lesser athletes in my opinion.
 

Pogue Mahone

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Judging by what Lee Grant is saying there, that's definitely not the case. That they're all left to their own devices usually eating shite the night before the weekend game is mental. No wonder our team became so unfit for a while.

Yet another case where top level football isn't the fine tuned peak performance in every aspect thing it's made out to be by many.
Top level successful football clubs do seem to take this shit seriously. Google “Pep Guardiola” and “diet” and there’s a tonne of stuff about how he overhauled the diet of City players. Likewise with Jurgen Klopp.


Nutrition and a healthy diet is especially important to Guardiola, given the amount of work that he asks his players to do on the training ground. Guardiola is carefully monitoring players’ diets, with high-calorie fruit juices, pizza and processed foods all off limits.

Defender Gael Clichy revealed that anyone who fails to meet Guardiola’s requirements cannot work with the first-team squad until they are the right weight.

Liverpool‘s head of nutrition Mona Nemmer has revealed how Jurgen Klopp created a new role at the club for her, and detailed her job in consulting with every player.

Nemmer joined the Reds from Bayern Munich in 2016, alongside head of fitness and conditioning Andreas Kornmayer, as Klopp overhauled his backroom staff at Melwood.
It’s particularly galling to read about stuff like this with such an obvious example of a player who improved his diet after leaving United - and now looks much sharper, leaner and fitter - currently leading the line at Chelsea.
 

11101

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Are footballers more agile, really? Check some videos of Stephen Curry. Then realize that he is the same height as Lukaku. Or check Durant who is half a foot taller than Ibrahimovic. I do not see in any way how footballers are more agile than elite basketball players.
Because in general basketball players are a foot taller and 20-30kgs heavier than footballers. They might look agile in isolation, but on a level playing field they're not. You can't get around that weight penalty. Of course you can find outliers. Curry is a bit of an shortarse in the NBA, and agility is not a word anybody has ever aimed at Lukaku.

Anyway, I see the NBA fans are crawling out of the woodwork to defend their beloved sport now.
 

Pogue Mahone

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Westbrook will play for 5 or 10 minutes then sit down for a bit. Basketball players cover 5km on a good day, in a game that lasts 2 to 3 hours all told. If your average PL footballer doesn't double that distance in the 90 minutes they'll probably find themselves staying at home the following week. Some will do 13km or more in a single game.
That really should have ended the discussion about which athletes are fitter.
 

Inigo Montoya

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Because in general basketball players are a foot taller and 20-30kgs heavier than footballers. They might look agile in isolation, but on a level playing field they're not. You can't get around that weight penalty. Of course you can find outliers. Curry is a bit of an shortarse in the NBA, and agility is not a word anybody has ever aimed at Lukaku.

Anyway, I see the NBA fans are crawling out of the woodwork to defend their beloved sport now.
Genuine question. Does the fact that basketball players in general use both arms as well as legs contribute to greater overall fitness than footballers?
 

11101

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Genuine question. Does the fact that basketball players in general use both arms as well as legs contribute to greater overall fitness than footballers?
It depends what you're measuring. My original point was about pure fitness and athleticism. Basketball players are stronger and more powerful because of the nature of the game, but they have to sacrifice some fitness and agility for that.

Long distance, shuttle runs, any kind of running test you could think of. A footballer will be better because that's what the sport demands. I mean its not even fecking close. You cover over twice the distance in almost half the time.
 

NYAS

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I every single time I enter this thread I’m left wondering if people are wumming or not.
 

Dan_F

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It depends what you're measuring. My original point was about pure fitness and athleticism. Basketball players are stronger and more powerful because of the nature of the game, but they have to sacrifice some fitness and agility for that.

Long distance, shuttle runs, any kind of running test you could think of. A footballer will be better because that's what the sport demands. I mean its not even fecking close. You cover over twice the distance in almost half the time.
Look man, the words you’re looking for are aerobic fitness. If you repeatedly just use the word “fitness” it’s going to be debated because it’s too vague. Fitness is not measured by who can run further.
 

Revan

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That really should have ended the discussion about which athletes are fitter.
They also play 100 games per season and are mostly doing sprinting and jumping. In total number of minutes, I think they average more than elite footballers.
 

DWelbz19

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I every single time I enter this thread I’m left wondering if people are wumming or not.
I feel the same in most threads now. I just left a thread where someone said we should replace Pogba with Kalvin Phillips and we won’t miss him at all
 

TrustInJanuzaj

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Or maybe you know that the burger contains at least 1000 kcal so you don’t want to take another pointless 300 kcal woth the coke if the diet version tastes almost the same.
Give your head a wobble. Diet Coke tastes nothing like the original! If you want to be on a diet, don’t drink Coke.
 

elmo

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That really should have ended the discussion about which athletes are fitter.
That's like saying Olympic long distance runners are fitter than the sprinters just because they cover more distance.

Most NBA players in the guard position would smoke even the fittest footballer around in terms of sprints, agility and strength.
 

FreddieTheReddie

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Give your head a wobble. Diet Coke tastes nothing like the original! If you want to be on a diet, don’t drink Coke.
I normally order water but sometimes I want something different. Why does it bother people if I don’t want to take extra 300kcal after that 1000kcal burger?
 

Inigo Montoya

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I feel the same in most threads now. I just left a thread where someone said we should replace Pogba with Kalvin Phillips and we won’t miss him at all
You shouldn’t have even bothered entering it in the first place :lol:

TBH that thread should have been put down at birth
 

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It’s particularly galling to read about stuff like this with such an obvious example of a player who improved his diet after leaving United - and now looks much sharper, leaner and fitter - currently leading the line at Chelsea.
The Lukaku one is a weird, it's not like he was pilling in the McDonalds and unfit, he did all that on purpose in some misguided attempt to be some sort of Mourinho ultra UNIT forward, it didn't work and these things take time to undo, by that stage he'd fallen out of favour.
 
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Mentality Monsters

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Still irks me...the science behind a good steak is the juiciness.

Well done steak, you suck the juices dry out of the steak, criminal. Imagine they use Black Angus? Wagyu? That piece of steak deserves some justice.

EDIT:
If I'm the chef, I'll ask my sous chef to take that frozen buffalo meat out from India. That is for Greenwood.
There's no 'science' when it comes to a good steak, do you know why? It's all subjective. You'd swear Greenwood ordered his steak for you the way you're going on. Relax.
 

Tom Cato

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Why do you think so? Basketball players seem to be far more athletic than footballers, despite being twice as large.
Basketball players are tall and comparatively to football players, heavy. The average weight in the NBA today is 217 lbs with an average height of 6ft 6inches. That is a bunch of tal and heavy boys. A NBA match consists of 4x 12 minutes, the 12 minutes include a LOT of stoppage and slow pace of play with the occasional burst of energy. Some of them are very heavy, and very strong. Shaq is one of the all time greats. If he had to play a game in the Premier League he would be done putting any effort in after 15 minutes of fast paced playing. Because he doesnt train for that sport.

Short burst, movement, accuracy and agility. That is what NBA players train for. Their body type is not one assosciated with endurance that is required in football.

What do you define athletic as? Ability to jump? Sure, NBA players who train leap power specifically jump higher than football players. Ability to run for an extend period of time? Football players have to be on the move for 2x 45 minutes constantly. Their cardiovascular performance far exceeds a NBA player. Football players are both shorter and lighter. They train sharp turn movements, long and short sprints and more importantly: Skill on the ball.

The Oxford definition of athleticism reads: "the physical qualities that are characteristic of athletes, such as strength, fitness, and agility.

My deadlift 1Rep Max is 660lbs. By that defintion I are more athletic than Ronaldo. By every other metric under the sun, Ronaldo is more athletic than me.
 

Tom Cato

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What should he considered though is whether those meals were pub style meals or professionally cooked meals with athletes in mind. Ie using lean ingredients, less sugar etc than what we are probably exposed to in everyday life. I would say that was probably the case. There’s enough videos on YouTube for American sports program which go through kitchens and explain the diets and how they try to make healthy food appetising for the athletes.

it’s not hard to make a healthy cheeseburger, it just tastes like arse compared to a McDonald’s or Burger King to some. Less processed shit and more natural ingredients with actual nutritional value.
Processed food is still food with natural ingredients. Processed food simply means that it contains a variation of added sugar, fat and sodium (salt). A processed hamburger is not unhealthy in itself, nor less nutritious than a "natural" hamburger.
 

Tony247

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When millions of pounds are at stake, there needs to be very strict diet imposed by the manager himself. Can't argue with that.
 

Adam-Utd

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The Lukaku one is a weird, it's not like he was pilling in the McDonalds and unfit, he did all that on purpose in some misguided attempt to be some sort of Mourinho ultra UNIT forward, it didn't work and these things take time to undo, by that stage he'd fallen out of favour.
I blame the caf. We tell everybody to bulk up, somebody finally did it and look how it turned out.
 

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It depends what you're measuring. My original point was about pure fitness and athleticism. Basketball players are stronger and more powerful because of the nature of the game, but they have to sacrifice some fitness and agility for that.

Long distance, shuttle runs, any kind of running test you could think of. A footballer will be better because that's what the sport demands. I mean its not even fecking close. You cover over twice the distance in almost half the time.
Which you continue to reduce to one definition whilst dismissing the rest of what fitness pertains to. That invalidates a large portion of your argument, because fitness and fitness tests are not just cardio.


Chart Standards Devgru Requirements
#ExercisesPassGoodGreatGold
1Pullups+ 15 reps+ 22 reps+ 26 reps+ 30 reps
2Pushups+ 80 reps+ 100 reps+ 120 reps+ 130 reps
3Sit-ups+ 90 reps+ 110 reps+ 130 reps+ 140 reps
43 Mile Run-22:30 min-20:00 min-18:24 min-18:00 min
5880 M. Swim-13:00 min-11:22 min-11:00 min-10:30 min


S.A.S. Modified Test
#ExercisesPassGoodGreatGold
1.Press Ups+ 45 reps are needed to pass
2.Sit-Ups+ 45 reps are needed to pass
3.1.5-mile runThe run has to be finished in under 09:30 min
4.Water EntryJump from a 10-meter tower.
4.25-meter water swim3 Meter water entry in full kit + Swim in uniform and weapon.
5.200 m swimTread Water for 5 min + Swim in uniform.
6.Dive TestUnderwater Swim + Object Retrieval.
7.8 Mile Hill RunIn less than 60 minutes


That's generically what fitness tests come down to - the more reps you can do of certain things, the fitter you are; the faster you can run/swim a distance in, but going further, there are even more measures of fitness. Weighted runs, too, which would be a curious affair for a footballer.

Continually reducing it to nothing but cardio is redundant at best and disingenuous at worst.