Ever wondered how your favorite players can keep playing on the field for long periods? If you have ever watched a soccer match and wondered what separates a player who looks sharp in the 89th minute from one who fades after 60, the answer is rarely raw fitness.
More often, it is what that player ate, and when. The what and when aspects of food intake play a big role in how one’s body can keep playing on the field.
Director of Sports Performance and Nutrition Education for Herbalife, Dr. Krissy Ladner reveals how the most important conversations she’s had with professional soccer players are not about supplements or superfoods. They are about timing. With 15% of Filipinos engaging in active sports, the key to levelling up one’s game might just be in the timing of food intake. The three and a half hours before kickoff are what I call the countdown — and they decide how a player feels, thinks and moves once the whistle goes.
The good news is that the same countdown works for any player, at any level, as long as you understand the principles behind it. Just like elite players, you can scale the following principles to your own game, whether it’s on a court, a field, or a track.
Three and a half hours before kickoff: the Hard Performance Plate
This is your last real meal before the match, and its job is to top off your energy stores. Muscles and the liver store carbohydrates as glycogen, and glycogen is the fuel your body reaches for first during high-intensity work like sprinting, jumping and changing direction. If those stores are low, you will feel it — not just in your legs, but in your mood, your focus and your decision-making on the ball.
Pre-match meals are built as a Hard Performance Plate: half the plate carbohydrates, a quarter fruits and vegetables, a quarter lean protein, and 16 to 32 fluid ounces of fluids alongside it. Think rice or pasta with chicken and roasted vegetables, or a rice bowl with grilled fish and fruit on the side. Add the protein to help you feel satisfied and delay hunger during the match.
Skip anything high in fat or fiber this close to kickoff — they slow digestion and may cause stomach distress. Same for spicy or acidic foods, which can trigger indigestion or heartburn just when you need to be running at full tilt.
One hour before kickoff: the top-up
This is where a lot of players go wrong. They either eat too much and feel heavy, or they eat nothing and start the match with a dropping blood sugar level. The goal here is a small, easy-to-digest top-up: 30 to 60 grams of simple carbohydrates, some electrolytes and 8 to 12 fluid ounces of fluids. A sports drink and a banana or a carbohydrate gel can do the job. So can a small granola bar and water.
Keep it familiar. If you have not eaten it in training, do not eat it before a match. This is not the time to be testing new foods.
The myth that will not die: carb-loading
As much as Filipinos love rice, you do not need to carb-load the night before unless your competition runs longer than two to three hours. A 90-minute soccer match does not qualify. A Sunday morning pickup game definitely does not. The big pasta dinner the night before has become a ritual for a lot of recreational players, but for most people it is not doing what they think it is doing. Eat a normal, balanced dinner and focus on your fueling on match day.
If you are playing a tournament or multiple matches in a day, that changes the equation — but for a single 90-minute match, the countdown is what matters. Eating consistently daily is the best way to ensure that you have adequate carbohydrate stores.
Elite to everyday
Even if your matches or training happen only at weekends, the principles are the same whether you are starting for a pro club or playing a Sunday league match at the park. Your body runs on the same fuel. A weekend player’s plate will be smaller than a pro’s, but the foundation — carbs, protein, fruits and vegetables, fluids — is the same. The timing — three and a half hours out, then one hour out — is identical.
And the most important rule of all, the one every elite player I have worked with lives by, is the no-surprises rule: never try anything new on match day. Test your fueling plan in training. See how your stomach handles it. See how your legs feel in the 75th minute. Once you know what works, stick with it.
The 90 minutes belongs to the players. The 3.5 hours before belongs to you.
