Pep - Doping (?) | Are PEDs being used by footballers

Paul_Scholes18 said:

We need to give Mata some of these things. Sanchez stopped taking it here too so no wonder he turned to shitm

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I guess you're joking, but if there's any team out there not doing, it was wengers arsenal.

He's one of the very few managers who actually spoke about it as a problem and even said outright that some of the players they've signed over the years first arrived at the club with blood values that weren't natural.

B20 said:

It also begs the question of what Leicester City were doing when they won the title.

• They had the second lowest amount of injuries in the league, despite using only 19 players during the season and and even smaller group of regulars.
• scored the highest amount of goals in the final 15 minutes of games in the league
• Topped the league in sprints
• Their star players were all plucked from obscurity in lower leagues and then proceeded to improve dramatically at Leicester. The donkey-to-racehorse effect?
  • Mahrez just this summer was dumped because of doping uncertainty over the summer
  • Kante is basically superhuman
  • Vardy is also quite the athletic specimen
• Everybody at Leicester had a dramatic turnaround that season, many of them at a quite late stage of their career.
• Their fitness the season before was nothing like it was that season. Inhouse, a lot of it was attributed to their best-in-class focus on sports and fitness science. Incidentally, they leaned on the same company that Juventus uses.

As an aside, from looking at Leicester also learned that Bournemouth topped the distance covered charts that season as well. Which means they've topped that chart 3 out of the last 4 seasons. Uncanny.

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Conpiracies, conspiracies everywhere...

Liverpool's recent injury flurry is due to the side effects of long term drug use finally catching up with them

That_Bloke said:

Conpiracies, conspiracies everywhere...

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The point is that all of us should accept that there is a very real possibility that it's not just "those other teams", but also our own, that may well be doping.

And Bournemouth fans doubly so.

B20 said:

The point is that all of us should accept that there is a very real possibility that it's not just "those other teams", but also our own, that may well be doping.

And Bournemouth fans doubly so.

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Ours are just dopey

Bebestation said:

Exactly - you look at the way that both Liverpool and City attack in a 235 to draw the CB's out to create space with inverted or attacking wingbacks whilst we do nothing - all we talk about is drugs.

Just give them their time.

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Great post.

I think one of the biggest benefits of PEDs in football would be to aid in recovery to either help keep a player up and running during a busy season or to help avoid injury. I've heard bodybuilders say that being on steroids doesn't get you bigger in itself but it allows you to train harder and recover quicker. Giving players a microdose of EPO and a testosterone patch a couple of times a week before they went home would be the easiest thing in the world with the laughable state of doping controls in football.

Adam_S said:

I think one of the biggest benefits of PEDs in football would be to aid in recovery to either help keep a player up and running during a busy season or to help avoid injury. I've heard bodybuilders say that being on steroids doesn't get you bigger in itself but it allows you to train harder and recover quicker. Giving players a microdose of EPO and a testosterone patch a couple of times a week before they went home would be the easiest thing in the world with the laughable state of doping controls in football.

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If anyone is thinking that football players are not using steroids during rehab or are using EPO during playing season you are all on drugs or something. Its a fact. It happens.
The more relevant question when it comes to doping is why it should not be allowed during rehab especially. When it actually helps athletes.
Thats a relevent question.

should the question not be that if other successful sports teams are using them, then why on earth are we not?. especially last season when our players looked so spent 70 mins into games...

Johan07 said:

If anyone is thinking that football players are not using steroids during rehab or are using EPO during playing season you are all on drugs or something. Its a fact. It happens.
The more relevant question when it comes to doping is why it should not be allowed during rehab especially. When it actually helps athletes.
Thats a relevent question.

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Of course it shouldn’t be allowed. Football may be in its own bubble but you’ve got to take care of the athletes properly first and foremost. Pumping them full of drugs is completely the opposite of that.

Steroids have huge side effects and could ruin their health later down the line for what is basically a job. If you have true dedication you don’t need these.

MMA is probably the best example. As soon as some fighters came off PED’s in the late 00’s they became distinctly average. You’ve got to set the right example and football is crooked enough a business already before we even start condoning this.

Superden said:

should the question not be that if other successful sports teams are using them, then why on earth are we not?. especially last season when our players looked so spent 70 mins into games...

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We have some morals unlike the rest I guess .

Love how people look at City yet completely disregard Liverpool for this?

Liverpool's energy levels is like watching Lance Armstrong flying up the mountains in the Tour De France whilst the rest were hardly able to breath. I believe in football doping is becoming more and more widespread throughout the game and one of the reasons it hasn't come out is to due with the money factor which FIFA and Uefa receive.

Johan07 said:

If anyone is thinking that football players are not using steroids during rehab or are using EPO during playing season you are all on drugs or something. Its a fact. It happens.
The more relevant question when it comes to doping is why it should not be allowed during rehab especially. When it actually helps athletes.
Thats a relevent question.

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Here's the thing. Used in relatively sensible amounts, the harmful effects of PEDs are relatively minimal. The problem is, once you legalise the lot, the tendency is to push it further and further until it becomes severely harmful to the athlete's health. There is no real way to distinguish between a relatively harmless dose of something and something that is going to do massive damage to somebody's health. During the glory days of doping in cycling in the 1990s, some of the stuff the riders were supposedly on was ridiculous. I've read stuff about them using synthetic blood plasma along with a cockatil of steroids, HGH, EPO and cortisone and having to set an alarm to wake them up in the night to take aspirin and drink water because their blood was so thick they might die in the night from a heart attack if they didn't. There is a huge list of pro body builders who have died from heart attacks or liver failure from all the crap that they take too. Steroids can cause infertility, mental health issues and a whole host of other problems.

Fundamentally, if you had a kid who was talented at a sport and wanted to take a shot at going pro, would you want them doing all of that if it was their only chance to succeed?

KDB in his annual winter period superman mode.

Son said:

Of course it shouldn’t be allowed. Football may be in its own bubble but you’ve got to take care of the athletes properly first and foremost. Pumping them full of drugs is completely the opposite of that.

Steroids have huge side effects and could ruin their health later down the line for what is basically a job. If you have true dedication you don’t need these.

MMA is probably the best example. As soon as some fighters came off PED’s in the late 00’s they became distinctly average. You’ve got to set the right example and football is crooked enough a business already before we even start condoning this.

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Adam_S said:

Here's the thing. Used in relatively sensible amounts, the harmful effects of PEDs are relatively minimal. The problem is, once you legalise the lot, the tendency is to push it further and further until it becomes severely harmful to the athlete's health. There is no real way to distinguish between a relatively harmless dose of something and something that is going to do massive damage to somebody's health. During the glory days of doping in cycling in the 1990s, some of the stuff the riders were supposedly on was ridiculous. I've read stuff about them using synthetic blood plasma along with a cockatil of steroids, HGH, EPO and cortisone and having to set an alarm to wake them up in the night to take aspirin and drink water because their blood was so thick they might die in the night from a heart attack if they didn't. There is a huge list of pro body builders who have died from heart attacks or liver failure from all the crap that they take too. Steroids can cause infertility, mental health issues and a whole host of other problems.

Fundamentally, if you had a kid who was talented at a sport and wanted to take a shot at going pro, would you want them doing all of that if it was their only chance to succeed?

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Yeah. Thats the thing. Used in a sensible matter PEDs are not the bad things that they are made out to be.
I dont have an answer to this, because there probably is not one.
But: If you are going to try to get rid of doping (you wont) in football you need to enforce a no-tolerance policy though.
That is not being done now. Not even close.
Doping is very difficult and costly to address. I am Scandinavian so I know the issues of endurance sports (cross-country skiing in particular from my point of view) where you have one athlete being suspended two years for using lip cream and others being caught with needles in their arms a couple of days before competing and getting a similar suspension.
This is a really complicated issue and FIFA and UEFA are so much behind that its ridiculous.

Johan07 said:

Yeah. Thats the thing. Used in a sensible matter PEDs are not the bad things that they are made out to be.
I dont have an answer to this, because there probably is not one.
But: If you are going to try to get rid of doping (you wont) in football you need to enforce a no-tolerance policy though.
That is not being done now. Not even close.
Doping is very difficult and costly to address. I am Scandinavian so I know the issues of endurance sports (cross-country skiing in particular from my point of view) where you have one athlete being suspended two years for using lip cream and others being caught with needles in their arms a couple of days before competing and getting a similar suspension.
This is a really complicated issue and FIFA and UEFA are so much behind that its ridiculous.

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I actually find it a bit suspicious that there are just no positive doping tests in football at all. You'd expect at least that some numpty from the lower leagues would get busted once in a while for taking something they got off EBay but there seems to be absolutely nothing. When you look at how pro cycling was able to hush up positive tests (Lance Armstrong donating $125,000 to the UCI's anti-doping programs springs to mind), the sheer amount of money in football and the level of corruption in the games' governing bodies, you have to wonder how hard it would really be for a Premier League or even a team much lower down the food chain to operate an organised doping program with little interference.

Adam_S said:

I actually find it a bit suspicious that there are just no positive doping tests in football at all. You'd expect at least that some numpty from the lower leagues would get busted once in a while for taking something they got off EBay but there seems to be absolutely nothing. When you look at how pro cycling was able to hush up positive tests (Lance Armstrong donating $125,000 to the UCI's anti-doping programs springs to mind), the sheer amount of money in football and the level of corruption in the games' governing bodies, you have to wonder how hard it would really be for a Premier League or even a team much lower down the food chain to operate an organised doping program with little interference.

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Its because the doping tests and policy in football is a joke. Everyone knows this. Its rudimentary at the most.
Of course no one will get "busted" for anything else than recreational drugs (See Mutu) and overly punished for it because of just being stupid, while actual PED abuse is going on unpunished.

Nothing to see here I am sure



https://www.sportbible.com/football...azy-transformation-while-in-lockdown-20200529

el diablorojo said:

Nothing to see here I am sure

https://www.sportbible.com/football...azy-transformation-while-in-lockdown-20200529

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He doesn't just look bigger he looks years older. I hardly recognised him.

el diablorojo said:

Nothing to see here I am sure

https://www.sportbible.com/football...azy-transformation-while-in-lockdown-20200529

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That is surely a older picture, right?

That’s outrageous

DomesticTadpole said:

He doesn't just look bigger he looks years older. I hardly recognised him.

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Indeed his face has undergone a transformation and putting on a stone in muscle while simultaneously dropping %'s of body fat while in lockdown, well if I was cynical I might say it reminds me of something quite hardcore. Luckily it was just hard work

Ace of Spades said:

That is surely a older picture, right?

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Yeah sure older - from January/February this year I believe

el diablorojo said:

Yeah sure older - from January/February this year I believe

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Is it now? A quick google search shows me the white squared patch Qatar logo on the left arm seems to be from the 2018/2019 season.

This is how Goretzka, on the the far right, looks this season from a similar angle, with a slightly different Qatar logo for the 2019/2020 kit:




Geez such outrageous and unnatural growth compared to that first picture you posted from a season ago, that's a totally impossible timeframe to gain some muscle mass.

Henrik Larsson said:

Is it now? A quick google search shows me the white squared patch Qatar logo on the left arm seems to be from the 2018/2019 season.

This is how Goretzka, on the the far right, looks this season from a similar angle, with a slightly different Qatar logo for the 2019/2020 kit:

Geez such outrageous and unnatural growth compared to that first picture you posted from a season ago, that's a totally impossible timeframe to gain some muscle mass.

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Ok, the above is this season though.

Also the club themselves say he has gone through the transition during lockdown...

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— Twitter API (@user) date

Ace of Spades said:

That is surely a older picture, right?

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Nope, they wanted him to add 1kg of muscle to help him in a more defensive role.

el diablorojo said:

Ok, the above is this season though.

Also the club themselves say he has gone through the transition during lockdown...

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

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And the answer their question certainly isn't lifting 20kg dumbbells.

el diablorojo said:

Ok, the above is this season though.

Also the club themselves say he has gone through the transition during lockdown...

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

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So you really think that is a good example of PED's being used in football?

I mean, I once read that Arjen Robben used to get injections of veal blood by club doctor Wolfhart Muller or whatever the bloke is called, now that's something regarding Bayern I found very suspicious and I was actually surprised treatment like that isn't illegal.

Especially because Robben had like 20 severe hamstring injuries yet he didn't lose his explosivity in his thirties at all, unlike say Rooney and countless of others.

But the Goretzka example, I don't see it.

Henrik Larsson said:

I mean, I once read that Arjen Robben used to get injections of veal blood by club doctor Wolfhart Muller or whatever the bloke is called, now that's something regarding Bayern I found very suspicious and I was actually surprised treatment like that isn't illegal.

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Müller Wohlfahrt uses *Actovegin* (very much in the open) which is said veal blood product (not veal blood itself), and he applies it intramuscular.
Actovegin has been on some anti doping agencies watchlist for a few months 20 years ago, focussing on intravenous appliance, but it has been removed and is not deemed to be performance enhancing.

MW has been criticised by some colleagues for using Actovegin (and other more obscure methods like homeopathy) mostly on grounds that it *wasn't* proven to do anything (witchdoctor), but there was a study in 2016 that analyzed the substance for the first time fully and came to the conclusion it could help speeding up recovery of muscular damage.

There always were some rumours around but i never heard anything of substance. It is fair to say that *if* there was some "inside knowledge" around that he didn't throw straight dice, the DFB or FCB would never have touched him with a 6ft stick... I know conspiracy theorists aren't the greatest of logical thinkers out there but *if* he was a cheater, shouldn't he just have loved working with that other cheater Pep?
his list of happy clients is long but the only pattern i see is that if you are a top athlete with muscular problems, you go see him. If you want to boost your performance (which usually is a long term involvement), you go see others - Ferrari, Fuentes....

el diablorojo said:

Nothing to see here I am sure

https://www.sportbible.com/football...azy-transformation-while-in-lockdown-20200529

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Wake me up once Müller's calves show signs of muscle.

There’s nothing wrong with Goretzka. Do some of ye think the only way to gain muscle is PED’s?

The teams i would suspect are those that press alot like klopps teams while the individual players i would suspect are those that transform in a short period of time from skinny lads to bodies similar to middle weight boxers.

The fact there are significant changes to his face suggests there could be something in it. If you look at the images of his back in the link too its serious amount of lean mass which takes a lot of work, especially in the space of 3/4 months.

Utdstar01 said:

The fact there are significant changes to his face suggests there could be something in it. If you look at the images of his back in the link too its serious amount of lean mass which takes a lot of work, especially in the space of 3/4 months.

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The only difference in his face is the angle.

Nick7 said:

The only difference in his face is the angle.

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Doesn't look it to me. Somebody mentioned he looks to have aged 5 years in the space of 3/4 months. Anabolics can enhance cheek bones, broaden your jaw line even make your nose bigger. To have gained that sort of mass and then gain that sort of definition in that time period is ridiculously difficult.

The guy looks like 10 years older. That's exactly what happens with people who taxi steroids for those gym gains. I know a couple of guys who were my age but look much older because of it.

mancan92 said:

The guy looks like 10 years older. That's exactly what happens with people who taxi steroids for those gym gains. I know a couple of guys who were my age but look much older because of it.

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Yep, same here mate. The cycles you take to make that much of a difference on your face tend to be the harsher cycles with the biggest sides. Not a sporting example but just look at Zac Efron before and after he did Baywatch.

Meh, these "before - after" pictures are always completely useless when not done in a comparable pose. Of course a picture of him with no body tension at all will look thinner than one were he is throwing his arms up in the air. Biceps will always look way bigger when your arms are lifted backwards bent over your head. And facial analysis based on in-game pictures? We should probably conclude that Phil Jones is eating babys because he's looking like an Uruk Hai in certain situations.

I mean, I'm the biggest Bayern hater there is but I find it very doutbful that they tell one of their players to take steroids in a short mid-season window given all the side effects. Football is not American football, bulking up to no ends does not have benefits, every muscle mass a midfielder needs can be soundly achieved through normal training.

This is from a year ago btw:


I guess his steroids source dried up until Corona? EPO is the big thing in football, that I'm sure of. Stereoids? I don't really think so...

Kasper said:

Meh, these "before - after" pictures are always completely useless when not done in a comparable pose. Of course a picture of him with no body tension at all will look thinner than one were he is throwing his arms up in the air. Biceps will always look way bigger when your arms are lifted backwards bent over your head. And facial analysis based on in-game pictures? We should probably conclude that Phil Jones is eating babys because he's looking like an Uruk Hai in certain situations.

I mean, I'm the biggest Bayern hater there is but I find it very doutbful that they tell one of their players to take steroids in a short mid-season window given all the side effects. Football is not American football, bulking up to no ends does not have benefits, every muscle mass a midfielder needs can be soundly achieved through normal training.

This is from a year ago btw:

I guess his steroids source dried up until Corona? EPO is the big thing in football, that I'm sure of. Stereoids? I don't really think so...

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Well, talk about a thread killer.

Man allegedly gains moderate amount of weight and muscle mass over a period of a few months, with two pictures from different angles and poses and unknown timeframe used to demonstrate this change.
Conclusion? Steroids.