Where does cocaine enter the picture? He was using it from the very beginning of his playing career. Got suspended 3 times by anti-doping agencies (most famously in 1994 at the World Cup)
At 27 years old in 1988, and at the very height of his abilities and fame, the Napoli playmaker would lower himself to the following “physical programme”.
Sunday: Serie A match.
Sunday night to Wednesday morning: continuous cocaine binge.
Wednesday morning to Saturday evening: “cleanse”, and sweat it all out.
Sunday: Serie A match.
That cocaine regimen implies there's some sort of multiday benefit to cocaine. Whereas it would make sense than any benefits from the drug would be from contemporaneous consumption during a match...
>Where does cocaine enter the picture? He was using it from the very beginning of his playing career. Got suspended 3 times by anti-doping agencies (most famously in 1994 at the World Cup)
I wanted to check this because my memory was that while he did self-sabotage in various ways, I did remember him having long enough career that was largely quite successful. So his time in Europe finished in 1993 (aged 33) with a relatively unsuccessful period at Sevilla (26 games, 5 goals) - which is as I thought. But I had NO memory of him playing four more years until 1997, and at Newell's and Boca no less! Incredible.
That said his affinity for cocaine, alcohol and partying in general undoubtedly blunted and stunted his career, which is mindblowing considering the success he had. What a player.
I'm old enough to have seen playing live at the stadium Zico, Platini and Maradona. They were all excellent players, but of course Dieguito was out of this world. Unfortunately his inner weakness turned him into a victim of the sharks that very often approach young successful sportsmen in order to bring them into their shitty corrupt world luring them with parties, luxury homes, fast cars and lots of girls.
Wow seeing him live must have been something, not least beside Zico and Platini! The closest I got to him was watching him manage Argentina vs Scotland in a friendly @ Hampden (they won 1-0), but he's a very popular figure in Scotland so it was almost like a home game.
I suspect that if you come from a poor, vulnerable ubringing and you're thrust suddenly into this world of plenty and wealth where you are basically a god then you're going to fly off the rails somehow. It's happened quite a few times by now.
I am no statistician, but all they did was a linear regression on an extremely small population and concluded that, somehow, correlation = causation.
> "Our outcome of interest is Soccer Prowess, which counts the number of players, born in a given country, nominated to the Ballon d’Or in the period 2016 to 2019"
An extremely small population.
> "The estimated coefficient on Meat Consumption is smaller when we include the full set of control variables, but remains positive and statistically significant."
Doesn't mean anything?
They somehow also conveniently ignored all the players who eat meat and don't make it. And the cocaine.
Anything that is big in Argentina and Brazil will cause this correlation.
Causation is obviously false, footballers mostly came from poverty and at least in Brazil meat is not so frequently consumed by them because of the cost.
Some seriously desperate denialism here. There's absolutely no evidence that a reasonable vegan diet is inferior to a meat eating diet, in fact quiet the opposite.
If we consider baseball or football prowess instead of soccer:
The Dominican Republic is vastly over-represented in the population of pro baseball players. I think you could easily find countries in Latin America to use as a control (same income level, same population, etc.)
The answer is most likely not diet, but the first-mover effect: a lot of Dominicans became baseball players, so American teams started scouting them more, pouring more into player development, etc. Young kids started seeing it as a way out of poverty.
I think American Samoa is also over-represented in the population of NFL players.
Or simply that a diet not meeting the nutritional needs can be correlated to worse athletic performance. And since meat is dense in nutrition, and since places with less meat available sometimes is low income, I think it’s plausible.
Footballers in Brazil mostly come from a poorer background where red meat is not that much available. Rice, beans, various kinds of flour are what they will eat everyday; eggs are probably the most consumed protein alongside those staple dishes
Brazil are good at soccer simply because they are the biggest country where soccer is the main sport so it will be hard to control for that trying to find other reasons. It will be more interesting to look at small countries with relative success like Uruguay or Holland.
Population is something that as a Scot mystifies me. We have a population similar to Croatia, yet they’ve been an incredible force in international football while we have languished in mediocrity, missing out on most major tournaments in the last 30 years.
At a club level there’s no contest - our domestic leagues are usually ranked higher in the UEFA coefficient than Croatia’s and traditionally we’ve had greater success in Europe. We are at a slight disadvantage re our restricted ability to field emigre players (ie had Eduardo Da Silva signed for, say, Dundee United rather than Dynamo Zagreb he would not have been eligible for Scotland so easily) but I do not believe this has impacted us significantly. Though we are losing players to Ireland due to stupid self-inflicted eligibility rules at schools level - James McCarthy and Aiden McGeady opting to play for Ireland still saddens me to this day.
I've heard talk of poorer countries turning out better players because at a crucial age (14-18) when you're choosing to commit to professional football you're basically choosing between rolling the dice at a professional career in football, or a more realistic longer term career through learning a trade or heading to university. And in this situation, it could be that the risk/reward is higher in somewhere like Croatia, Brazil or Argentina. But this doesn't explain why other small high-income countries like Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland are routinely competing at a higher level than we are.
If I was a director at the Scottish Football Association I’d be closely studying what these countries are doing differently because there’s something we are desperately missing. I have my thoughts, but I'm just another armchair analyst with no power so it makes little sense to share them :)
The relative success of one country vs another is multifactorial, mysterious, and I would have a lot to say about it, or better, to speculate about, but for now I will simply say that Scotland is a small country, therefore with a limited number of candidates for international-level football, and is losing part of their talent pool to the sport of rugby. Most of the backs and some flankers would definitely be good candidates for top-level football.
Croatia has basketball, but the talent pools for basketball and football do not overlap. Then, we are talking here about national teams. At the club level, the performance of teams from Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland is far from that of teams from the most, football-wise, prestigious countries.
I would strongly disagree that we're losing players to rugby. While rugby is (IMO[0]) the second sport in Scotland far more youngsters play football than rugby, and in practical terms the potential for making a career out of rugby is more unlikely than football. So I don't think that we're spreading ourselves more thinly than Croatia are, I think there's something more to it than that.
[0] - I actually read a while back that Cricket had more registered players than Rugby in Scotland, but I take this with a pinch of salt. But make no doubt about it, our sporting focus is roughly similarly focussed on Football to Croatia's.
Pro rugby players and pro soccer players usually look like they're barely from the same species - I'd be amazed if anyone has the opportunity of choosing a first class career in both sports
You're right, China is another peculiar outlier on the other side of the spectrum. I wondered whether the reason is that they've got pretty solid pipeline that reliably turns kids into elite Olympic athletes, so maybe potential world class footballers (+ funding) are diverted into those programs instead.
Where do the best Scottish players go to play club football? In the nations you listed, the best of the best end up in Barca, RM, Bayern, etc… They then return with best practices and an aura that influences the entire team.
If Scottish club football is the pinnacle for Scottish players then this may be a factor?
The best Scottish players go south and play in the Premier League in England or the Championship. But England can be very sink-or-swim in my opinion, Billy Gilmour was (and IMO is) a promising youngster who has basically been told he's got no future at Chelsea even though he's very talented. There's been a potentially promising recent trend recently of a few Scottish youngsters being sought out in Italy - Aaron Hickey had signed for Bologna a year back and a great season, Liam Henderson is a regular at Empoli and Lewis Ferguson left Aberdeen for (coincidentally) Bologna this season. I say it's a trend because it's so recent and so unlikely, previously if a Scot played in Italy they were truly a superstar. We're talking Joe Jordan, Denis Law and Graeme Souness. Personally I hope Gilmour ends up in Serie A or La Liga.
That said, you may have a point. Many Scots boys grow up idolising Celtic or Rangers. It could be that many get signed for their boyhood club and choose to remain there, even if a club who is better for their long-term development is interested.
I am surprised they emphasize "development of the cognitive functions required to excel in soccer" but not physical development from meat (and hence higher protein) consumption
Sure: some athletes get a lot of protein that way, and others get a lot of protein without eating any meat. It's beneficial for muscle-building either way you do it.
There have been a number of high profile athletes having questionable performances after going low meat/vegetarian/vegan. Most recently Canelo in his performance against Bivol.
