MILAN, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Italian league leaders Lazio have
hired a professor of physiology to help them prepare for games
and he has come up with a novel proposal for the players diets
-- pizza.
"Athletes need carbohydrates for proper muscle development,"
says Professor Cama, "It is not easy if you only eat only pasta
of an afternoon and it isn't enough to deal with the players
appetites.
"A nice slice of pizza, with tomato or with potato, with a
little olive oil, has a low amount of fat, creates a balanced
diet and is easy to digest and tasty," he said.
The diet has an added bonus claims the professor.
"The boys are happy and that has a good psychological effect
on the team."
In line with the professor's plan, on Wednesday, a van
arrived at the club's Formello training camp delivering steaming
hot pizza from a local restaurant for Lazio stars like Sebastian
Veron and Marcelo Salas.
The new diet allowed by Swedish coach Sven Goran Eriksson is
in stark contrast to that of his predecessor Zdenek Zeman who
forced his players to go through "wash out" -- a period when
their bodies were totally cleansed of fat by a diet of broiled
vegetables with boiled potatoes.
"That kind of diet does not work for footballers," says
Professor Cama.
"Starving the system of fat and then giving it sudden blasts
of carbohydrates might work for some sports where you need short
burst of energy but for football you need a more balanced diet,"
he says.
While the new regime appears to have been welcomed by the
Lazio squad it will be a shock to former Lazio striker Beppe
Signori who penned the recipe book "The Italian Footballer's
Diet."
The book was translated into English and aimed to teach
English players, notorious for their diet of steak and chips,
the benefits of pasta and mineral water.
A number of Italian players who played in England, such as
Fabrizio Ravanelli, complained about the food offered to them by
their clubs and expressed surprise that premier league players
ate hamburgers and drank alcoholic beverages.
Food has since become a sensitive issue in English football.
Former England international Paul Gascoigne found himself
heavily criticised after he was photographed eating a kebab
sandwich the night before a game.
A few years earlier then-England manager Graham Taylor
criticized what he called Gascoigne's "refueling habits."
Gascoigne will perhaps now be regretting he ever left Lazio
and the chance of a tasty, approved, snack before kickoff.