Doping in Football

Tryasize10 said:
Something I find pretty unbelievable mind is the transformation wenger had on arsenal when he first came in. I think it's always been suggested that change in lifestyle, diet etc were the reasons but I don't personally think that is 100% plausible
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Without googling wasn't there some controversy with the use of creatine when he first came to Arsenal?
 
Andy_W said:
I think they're forgetting about diet, fitness and not drinking. Neville might not have been a big drinker, but I bet he would have been drinking way more than the biggest drinkers on the European sides. People like Keane were massive drinkers, nobody is going to convince me he drank less and was in better shape than his opposition?

The Europeans where about a decade ahead of English players in that respect. In a game where the skill margins became smaller and smaller, things like fitness and diet etc play a much bigger part.

That's not saying the Europeans and south Americans were not more skilful mind, as they were, but that is down to the football when they're growing up, it's a lot more technical (or it was). If you're skilful enough to retain the ball, you can pass the opposition to death, and even if they're just as fit as you, it doesn't matter, as they're not as fit as the ball. Like the old saying goes, "the ball doesn't get tired, but the people chasing it do".
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I think a lot of what you have said is true, however you may be missing the point a little bit. I don't believe they were talking about all European teams being harder to play against, they were clearly talking about certain teams and even players, without trying to implicate themselves.

The point in my original post was around the irregularities and coincidences around that unbelievable Barca team which was using the same Dr. which led to Pep himself being found guilty. I'm not sure the drinking culture in the 2011 Manchester United team was an awfully big one?
 
WoodallServices said:
No you don’t need a hat, it will be rife. A blog that was doing the rounds last year from a Liverpool fan shocked that over 60% of Klopp’s Liverpool team were ”ASTHMATIC”!!
For me when they won the PL they ran everyone into the ground. Add Leicester to that theory as well.
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Yes I read about this a while back too, another doping workaround taken from the cycling industry I believe. I am sure Bradley Wiggins once came out saying he disagreed with how much the British Cycling Team were using inhalers.
 
The one thing I'll say in defence of the Barcelona team under Guardiola is that they were quite clearly the best team in the world by a country mile, on purely footballing ability alone. This is backed up by the fact that they nucleus of that team won 3 international tournaments in a row with Spain. Add probably the best player of all time to that and they are going to dominate. Looking back too, the United team in the 2011 final is a long way from being Ferguson's best United team, so it's not surprising that it looked like men against boys. I'm not saying they weren't doping, just that looking back now that team were so clearly so much better than anyone else that it's no surprise that they looked like exactly that.
 
Magic Man said:
I think a lot of what you have said is true, however you may be missing the point a little bit. I don't believe they were talking about all European teams being harder to play against, they were clearly talking about certain teams and even players, without trying to implicate themselves.

The point in my original post was around the irregularities and coincidences around that unbelievable Barca team which was using the same Dr. which led to Pep himself being found guilty. I'm not sure the drinking culture in the 2011 Manchester United team was an awfully big one?
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They only played against CL teams though, or international sides, who are top level ability and top level commitment.

It's UK culture, the 2010's is less than the 00's and that less than the 90's, but the drinking and diet culture was still worse in those decades, and of course over time it hurts too. It's not all out down to what you're doing now, it's also what you did. Ronaldo wouldn't be playing now if he was a boozer in his 20's etc.

Don't get me wrong mind, I'm not saying they were not using PED's or whatever, but for cycling or other sports these were used for very marginal gains, which paid off over much longer durations, like 4 hour rides or the TDF etc.
 
Andy_W said:
Don't get me wrong mind, I'm not saying they were not using PED's or whatever, but for cycling or other sports these were used for very marginal gains, which paid off over much longer durations, like 4 hour rides or the TDF etc.
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There is a more obvious advantage to using PEDs in sports which are less skill orientated and more physical/endurance orientated such as cycling, athletics, swimming etc.

However there is still clear advantages to using PEDs in a sport like football. If you can keep your strength but shed a couple of kilos or a drug like Growth Hormone is excellent at preventing injuries as it strengthens all your tendons and ligaments as well as your muscles. I'd love to see Barlaser get on the juice for the summer. A testosterone infused Dan could be a different animal in the midfield.
 
Sports Science has come on so much that the fitness of the players in the 90s compared to now is a completely different level. It makes sense that in that time period there will have been teams and players that were ahead of the curve so one-off anecdotes about teams that were fitter than them are not particularly useful. Players will always look for a reason why they got beat and when their egos are so large they will think someone must be cheating.

That being said, I think it is extremely unlikely that there isn't a significant amount of PED taking and the authorities would rather turn a blind eye than tarnish the reputation of the game. The testing schedule seems really lax compared to sports like athletics and cycling. Even if it wasn't completely widespread it seems very unlikely that we see hardly anyone getting caught and there must be some players that would take the risk. When there is money involved then people will do whatever they can to get an edge. There is no way that the rate is as low as the rate of people caught suggestst.

I read that the Spanish government destroyed all the samples to be tested after the doctor involved with the cycling had been implicated and those samples were for the football team and the tennis. Nadal is always linked to PEDs. Klopp's Liverpool team is a giveaway that some sort of gaming of the system goes on even if they are not actively taking steroids because there is no way that many players in a squad as fit as they were needed inhalers for asthma.
 
1finny said:
We always look elsewhere for doping. Neville’s memory bust be failing.
Rio Ferdinand?

Footballers can get as little as 1 annual test a year - that demonstrates its isn’t taken seriously.
File under tennis
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Exactly the idea that uk is above all this is ludicrous.

May not be as bad but there’s no way the uk is 100% clean.

Look at our cycling ???
 
Neville has admitted to doing it himself during the 1998 World Cup. He said in his book he was given an injection before a game and felt more energised going into the game.

I personally think it is rife at the top level. Everyone talks about Guardiola’s Barcelona side for their tiki-taka passing but nobody seems to remember those games where they pressed absolutely ferociously - I’ve never seen anything like it. Part of the reason they were recording 70-80% possession every game wasn’t just because they were great on the ball, it was because of the ferocity and intensity of their press and how quickly they won the ball back off the opposition.

Their playing style changed soon after Dr Fuentes was arrested. Guardiola hasn’t implemented that style anywhere else other than Barcelona either.
 
In regards to Italy I remember seeing Tony dorego ( yes that one) after he joined juve being interviewed laying on a bed alongside his team mates with a drip in his arm.

So it’s nothing new. Italy did cheat openly so not sure what the issue is now.
 
Jedi boro said:
In regards to Italy I remember seeing Tony dorego ( yes that one) after he joined juve being interviewed laying on a bed alongside his team mates with a drip in his arm.

So it’s nothing new. Italy did cheat openly so not sure what the issue is now.
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I think players have said similar about Chelsea in the mid-90s, and how the doctors there started to work as the club become more competitive at the top end of the league. You go and see your doctors for your injections.
 
The advantages of EPO are so well documented in cycling doping history, and as other posters have said, its well known that operation puerto alleged drug use by football teams, tennis players etc, it would be unbelievably naïve to say that the top footy teams in the 90/00's, when doping doctors were so far ahead of the curve than doping authorities, weren't to some degree on the juice!!

Serie A has had proven referee bribing scandals, a coupla lines of whizz will have been nothing for them
 
MickaelDebevePhenomenal said:
The advantages of EPO are so well documented in cycling doping history, and as other posters have said, its well known that operation puerto alleged drug use by football teams, tennis players etc, it would be unbelievably naïve to say that the top footy teams in the 90/00's, when doping doctors were so far ahead of the curve than doping authorities, weren't to some degree on the juice!!
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Do you not think they'll still be ahead? We just won't know it for another 10 or 15 years
 
It's metaphorical rock that footballs governing bodies don't want to look under, there's not a single reason why they would be motivated to do so.

Where there's big money to be made, corruption inevitably follows.
 
viv_andersons_nana said:
Neville has admitted to doing it himself during the 1998 World Cup. He said in his book he was given an injection before a game and felt more energised going into the game.

I personally think it is rife at the top level. Everyone talks about Guardiola’s Barcelona side for their tiki-taka passing but nobody seems to remember those games where they pressed absolutely ferociously - I’ve never seen anything like it. Part of the reason they were recording 70-80% possession every game wasn’t just because they were great on the ball, it was because of the ferocity and intensity of their press and how quickly they won the ball back off the opposition.

Their playing style changed soon after Dr Fuentes was arrested. Guardiola hasn’t implemented that style anywhere else other than Barcelona either.
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There are darts players serving bans for failing drugs tests.
 
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