Two sports doctors tell us about sleep after matches at 9 p.m.

• Thomas Tuchel had a rant against the programming of his team's matches at 9 p.m.
• He explains that his players lose a lot of sleep because of this, which has an obvious impact on the recovery of bodies between two returns.
• Two sports and sleep physicians were interviewed to discuss these issues.

On the sidelines of the displacement of PSG on the lawn of Monaco Wednesday evening in late match of the 15th day of Ligue 1, the Parisian coach Thomas Tuchel pushed a rage against the scheduling of the matches at 21h. Launched in a marathon far from his bases (with four away games scheduled at 9 p.m. in 12 days), the German coach worries about the recovery times of his players and the impact of the repetition of the matches at 9 p.m. on the sleep of his troops.

"It's very difficult because it's always an extra effort to play at 9pm outside," he said at a press conference. We come home very late, we sometimes go to bed at 3 am, 4 am, 5 am… The players are dead! They don't sleep. We have to manage the training schedules, let the players sleep so that they recover. We lose the rhythm. To try to understand the real consequences of these post-match nights altered by both the excitement of dating and the return trips, two sports doctors were called who specialized in sleep issues.

🔴🔵 Tuchel's new sworn enemy is called ... "9 pm". pic.twitter.com/0hYTZ5wcQt

Doctors François Duforez and Bertrand de la Giclais, sports and sleep doctor at Hôpital Dieu de Paris for one, in Annecy for the other, have notably worked with AS Monaco and Olympique de Marseille. According to them, the thump of Thomas Tuchel is not devoid of legitimacy. Interview.

What do you think of the PSG coach's statements regarding the matches at 9 p.m.?

Duforez: In football we are starting to have a lot of knowledge since we have collected a lot of data in recent years from players in Monaco and Marseille via connected watches. They wore them 24 hours a day for almost two weeks. We tried to understand what are the circumstances that make sleep times very short. What Tuchel says is a reality. We have made several pro clubs and the figures speak for themselves: on average the players who played at home and who fall asleep the earliest do so around 1 a.m., but it can go until 5 a.m. - 5.30 a.m. For away games, it shifts it even more.

De la Giclais: The players accumulate phase delays and this lag can create small failures in training the next day for example. Even in spite of the tiredness, on match nights sleep doesn't come, that's how it is. This is the problem of the fair distribution between the media coverage of the matches that the channels want to schedule in prime time and the healthy lifestyle of athletes. It is the same thing in tennis, it is not uncommon to have matches that are played until 10 or 11 p.m. But what can we do about it? The crux of the war is media coverage and TV rights.

What role does sleep play in the recovery of top athletes ?

D: It plays first on the physiological level. In the deep slow sleep phase, which is quality sleep, you increase muscle repair. Second point: we have recently noticed that deep slow sleep increases the memory of memories and knowledge. Behind there are all the concepts of motor skill, learning. This is during the REM sleep phase, it is called procedural memory. If you lack sleep, you have memory problems, concentration, mood disorders and finally you learn less quickly. I remember players who farted the crusaders all alone, because they had released the vigilance and clack, the knee loose after a bad reception.

PSG plays three times more often in the evening than other big European clubs> https://t.co/JCXJpz0FwX pic.twitter.com/HdHqJYH5Ad

We often talk about the excitement that takes time to come down. Is that the only explanation?

D: No. We realized that for an evening match, the players find themselves under extremely high light intensities. We are talking about 10,000 lux. Now, that blocks the secretion of melatonin [sleep hormone]. The quality of sleep will then depend on both the player and the outcome of the match. Some are more anxious than others and will tend to redo the match in their heads, especially if it did not go well, if they made a mistake. Third factor: social networks. Some players will watch what is said about them on the net, it keeps them awake because what is said about them is not always pleasant to read. It is a new phenomenon but it is very real. They all try to find their own ritual to fall asleep too late. But when the ritual is to watch Netflix, it is not good because we know very well that they will have trouble watching only one episode of a series for example. On arrival it ruins an hour, an hour and a half of sleep at night.

Not to mention video games ...

D:

Paradoxically, they don't play too much on the console after the games but rather before. As the idea is to decompress and not think too much about football, most of them avoid playing games like Fifa.

To answer Tuchel, isn't the solution finally to sleep on the spot for the teams which play outside?

G: Yes, absolutely. Rather than taking a bus, then a plane, and going to bed at 4 a.m., it is better to sleep on the spot to stock up on sleep and then come back the next day and postpone the training sessions scheduled for that day.

D: Before the match in Dortmund in the Champions League two years ago, we decided with the Monegasque medical staff, and in agreement with Leonardo Jardim, to operate in this way. It was easier because the airport was in Frankfurt and that involved making a lot of buses before getting there. It was wiser in terms of safety, to avoid muscle injuries. If you are sleep deprived you increase the risk of having a muscle injury by 1.7%.

So Foot: A sleep specialist, what for? https://t.co/Bx4gKTXIgM pic.twitter.com/VQ6jjHIHSa

Is there any other solution to improve the sleep of the players after the matches?

D: There are several yes. First, exposure to cold, cold baths, cryotherapy. It is absolutely necessary to cool both the body and the brain. Another important element is education. The goal when talking with the players is to set up a bedtime ritual. But the player must be demanding and agree to pay attention to all of this. I know that some of the footballers I have worked with have really changed their behavior on this. Last point: as the brightness was very important during a match, the idea is to put them in light baths. It's something experimental, we tried it a lot with some success with the football team. It allows internal melatonin to go up in the brain. We replace the light tiles in the changing rooms with others in warmer colors. To the eye, we are on colors that approach that of twilight.

🗣💬 "It's been 36 years that the poster match is at 9 pm and that won't change anytime soon"

Didier Quillot responded very firmly to Thomas Tuchel, after his release on the #AfterFoot #RMCLive match schedule pic.twitter.com/aRfH8qStgR

When you worked with Monaco or Marseille, did you find that the players were asking for advice, that they were really interested in the issue?

G: Yes, they followed all the recommendations we made to the team. I remember a certain emulation at the time around this work. It was brand new to them.

Is football lagging behind on these questions of good sleep management?

D: Team sports in general I would say.

G: We have worked a lot in recent decades on nutrition and sport but not on sleep. But we survive on earth both thanks to food but also to sleep (you deprive an animal of sleep, it dies in fifteen days). And it is true that apart from Monaco and Marseille, there are few clubs that have asked us for advice on this side. However, there are many things to discover and improve.

• Sleep
• Sport
• Soccer
• PSG
• Thomas tuchel