The secret of football’s pillow talk

No footballer ever likes to be caught napping but, away from the pitch, they’re being advised to do just that, and more, as the science of sleep plays an increasing role at the highest levels in the game.

Real Madrid are leading the way, having invited ‘elite sport sleep coach’ Nick Littlehales to give a seminar at the club two years ago. He has also lent his expertise in the area of linking snores and scores to England, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Southampton.

At Madrid, according to the BBC, as well as assessing the five-star bedrooms at the club’s training complex and offering advice on temperature, lighting, air quality, duvets and mattresses, Littlehales conducted a one-on-one consultation – at the player’s request - with Gareth Bale, whose natural body clock apparently means he falls asleep and wakes up later than most.

Now, as many students and parents of teenagers will be quick to point out, Bale hitting the hay late and struggling to rise early, is hardly a unique phenomenon; indeed, Littlehales says he has also treated an unnamed Manchester City player who, following Champions League games, reported enormous difficulty in getting to sleep.

“He’d stay downstairs on the Xbox until the early hours,” Littlehales told BBC Sport, perhaps touching on a clue to the problem right there. “He’d fall asleep on the sofa and wake up mid-morning because he didn’t have training the following day - he was completely out of sync.

“Your body has two in-built nap times when energy levels dip - the first between 1pm and 3pm and the second between 5pm and 7pm. Now he just works around the kick-off. Before and after the game he has a routine. If he’s got a 7:45pm kick off at home, his bed time is 2am. He gets up at 6:30am and has breakfast. If he’s still tired, he’ll have a 90-minute nap at those times and catch up with his sleep that way.”

And towards that end, the 32 bedrooms at City’s new state of the art training ground even have what is described as “sleep-inducing wallpaper” – apparently a design of concentric circles in a light green colour. (As the Premier League season near its end, depressed City fans can insert their own gag here about the wallpaper doing its job only too well).

International football is obviously very different to the club game in terms of the amount of time the players spend in camp but, says Ireland’s team doctor Alan Byrne, the benefits of good sleep as part of the overall role of rest and recovery, are fully recognised.

“It’s true that we only have them for short periods of time,” he says, “but there are a few practical things we do. When we’re at home, we always have the same floor in the hotel so the lads would by and large get the same rooms that they like. Some of the lads like to room on their own, some of the lads like to be with others. There are some snorers so I bring lots of sets of ear-plugs, common sense things like that.

“For away trips, some of the boys would find it hard to sleep and there is a role for short-acting hypnotics on long-haul flights. Say we were travelling to the States, for example, some of the lads might take half a sleeping tablet. I wouldn’t say it’s either encouraged or discouraged, it’s very much an individual thing.

“Travelling west to east is the biggest problem, for example to somewhere like Georgia. What we do is we train in Dublin on the morning of the day we depart, in order to travel early enough in the day so we can switch on to local time as soon as we can. We also send our chef a day in advance and have started now to send a physio a day in advance too, so that our medical floor is all set up and when we arrive the lads can get massage therapy which is of benefit in terms of recovery. It’s been shown that the more natural light you can have when you arrive in a place the quicker, your circadian rhythms return to normal.

“We tend, for social reasons and team spirit, to have a snack every evening at 10pm in the games room where we encourage all the players and backroom staff to meet, even if it’s just for five or 10 minutes. Often the boys will use that as their trigger to head to bed.

But some of them do find it difficult to sleep. No more than any other human being, if you’ve something on your mind, or maybe it’s even the importance of the game itself, that might require a late-night chat. Even after training, some of them will go to bed but not all of them. They’re as varied as any group of individuals.”

Robbie Keane, of course, has become used to coping with jet-lag on his regular transatlantic commutes and has developed his own programme for rest and recovery when he arrives in Dublin.

“Coming from LA, that’s a big west to east move,” observes Alan Byrne, “but he can mentally accommodate that.”

No discussion of sleep and Irish football can be considered complete, however, without reference to the great Damien Duff who, by all accounts, is one of those lucky people who can fall sleep at the drop of a hat.

“We’d come in from training and next time you’d see him was dinner time,” confirms Alan Byrne.

“Duffer was just an amazing fellow in how he prepared, an absolute thorough professional.

“And sleep was important for him. It helped him relax and prepare himself physically and mentally for the game”.