Alcohol in amateur soccer

Of course, every player knows that alcohol negatively affects his performance, but only a few actually keep their hands off it. I, too, am aware that the consumption of alcohol is firmly anchored in the everyday lives of almost all amateur soccer players.

For many, our sport and club life represent a central point of reference in their lives, and these social occasions are almost always associated with the consumption of alcoholic beverages.

A 2006 survey of amateur soccer players from the B-class to the Landesliga showed that only just under 2% of respondents abstained completely from alcohol. The remaining 98% confirmed that they consume alcohol at least once a week. Over 11% even said they drank between three and four times a week.

When asked about their last 15 competitive games, over half of the respondents admitted to having been drunk at least before a game, and just over a quarter had one or more binge drinks.

Of particular interest is the point that almost 88% of the subjects said they had been impaired in competitive play by past alcohol consumption.

Why is this so, why does the player accept a loss of performance, although for many players the whole week is about nothing but the game at the weekend?

Alcohol triggers similar processes in the brain as the consumption of cocaine, amphetamines or other narcotics.

As a result of these processes, the body perceives the consumption of alcohol as an enormously positive stimulus. Consequently, it stores the ingestion of the intoxicant for itself as important. So important, in fact, that most players don't care that they impair their own performance by consuming alcohol before their competitive match. The body's need for "intoxication" defeats reason.

Our happiness hormone, which allows the cells to communicate with each other. It has the task of directing our attention to the stimuli whose satisfaction leads to our well-being.

These stimuli are subsequently classified by our body as "particularly important". Eating, sleeping or having sex are existential needs, the satisfaction of which leads to well-being and thus to the release of dopamine in the body.

The consumption of alcohol leads to a 200-times increased release of our happiness hormone by the nerve cells. The communication signal of the cells among themselves is thereby enormously strengthened. This eventually leads to the fact that our brain begins to perceive alcohol as a very important and positive stimulus – just like sex or food.

The effect of alcohol on physical performance has now been studied for many years. Above all, the influence of ethanol on the central nervous system impedes communication between the control organs of the brain and the muscles.

This results above all in a prolonged reaction time and impaired coordination. This circumstance naturally has a negative effect on the areas of speed and quickness. Due to the previous consumption of alcohol, you need more time to take the ball, your decision-making processes in the brain and the final execution of the action (pass, shot, dribble).

Numerous studies have demonstrated reduced muscle performance after alcohol ingestion. This is mainly due to the fact that alcohol inhibits or blocks protein biosynthesis and gluconeogenesis.

This means that your liver is unable to provide your muscles with the sugar they need. On the other hand, it results in an approximately 20% poorer regeneration of the stressed muscles and delays this by up to 24 hours.

Especially on double game days, it has a crucial impact on your muscle recovery and your performance.

I've seen several players in my career who couldn't handle the pressure on them before the game. Sometimes the pressure was put on them from the outside, sometimes they had very high expectations of themselves.

Alcohol was an outlet for these players on the eve of the game to cushion the pressure and to be able to go into the game supposedly "carefree". Light-hearted because they already had a perfect excuse ready for a poor performance and could calm themselves down in the event of an indisputable performance.

"Of course I played badly, I was also full as a bucket the night before".

Do you know any players like that? I do too, and one of them quite well. Namely me. Unfortunately, these last lines describe my early years in the men's game quite accurately.

For a long time, I couldn't handle the self-generated pressure and took refuge in long disco nights and alcohol binges before games.

Today I know how much I harmed myself back then. I would like these lines to make you think in the future. If someone had put an article like this in my hand 15 years ago, it would have saved my coaches a lot of gray hair.

From today's perspective, I was probably the nightmare of every coach for many years. However, I hope to save you from such mistakes with these lines.