Portal de Murcia
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In the world of professional sports it is very difficult to know where your steps will take you every season and in the case of nutritionist Juanjo Morillas can speak of a dream fulfilled.
A telephone call with a very specific proposal changed his career forever and gave a boost to the world elite.
AS Monaco FC, France's leading Ligue 1 team and qualified for the Champions League, called him to become the first team nutritionist for the 2016/17 season.
To work with a template full of stars of the level of Falcao, Mbappé or Joao Moutinho.
Impossible to refuse.
Once the season is over, Morillas has taken advantage of the return to Murcia to go through the UCAM, university where he trained and comment with some students and teachers of Nutrition his experience of this season.
A very striking aspect was how he began an experience that has led him to develop the nutrition plan of a team that has completed a triumphal season.
"It was a very big change and I had to adapt very quickly.It is now when I realize what we have achieved winning the Ligue 1 of France and making the Champions League semi-finals"
It has not all been so easy and reaching a top-notch team requires time, patience and a lot of work: "I had played football before and was very close to this world, and after finishing my career as an athlete I started my path as a nutritionist Football teams, basketball teams and individual athletes.Thanks to a contact, from the many that are made in the world of football, I got the opportunity to go to Monaco.This sounds very easy and short but it has been five or six years of work".
The first thing that has changed in his work regarding what he was doing in Spain is that now "I have a full and complete dedication. It is a unique player nutritionist".
The jump of being two or three times a week to live with the staff every day has allowed him to move to another level in his preparation: "When you are so much time with the team increases the human relation and the confidence of the footballer in your work, And that I have exploited a lot this year. "
One of the advantages that the players of the Monegasque club have had in having a Murcia nutritionist is that they have discovered a great variety of products of the orchard: "In the diet of Monaco there have been missing products of the Region of Murcia.Mucha vegetables, Red pepper, a lot of citrus like the one we have here, but you also have to adapt to them taking into account that there are players of different nationalities and you have to get stuff that everyone likes and go changing the menus, but of course I have Including things from my land. "
Cohabitation between footballers and coaches from different countries and religions is also noticeable in the diet, and there Morillas has played a crucial role: "They do not eat very different from us, although I have had to adapt, for example, to the peculiarities of the diet For religious reasons.While Muslim players have to include different meats.But in the end it does not cost so much ".
The nutritionist's role in football has evolved radically in recent years.
If it did not exist practically, it was little by little to have an expert in food who was consulting the staff externally.
Today, an elite team without a nutrition professional is not understood, and Morillas has experienced that change in the first person: "When I studied the race at UCAM, you left with doubts, there were hardly any exits, you had the idea to start in The team that does not have a sports nutritionist lacks something. There has been a big step and we have to exploit this moment because we have managed to demonstrate that the presence of a Nutritionist can improve the performance of a team. "
And in the case of a team like Monaco even more, since there are many games that are played at the end of the season and having a balanced diet and adjusted to the needs of players is essential for performance not lower: Football is a very demanding sport and in this level in which they play so many games accumulated with the League, the Cup and the Champions more. It is very important the recovery, and if the player does not do it well can have problems of tiredness Which can lead to injury, so nutrition is very important in recovering well. "
This load of matches makes it very difficult to make concessions to the whims of the players, although in that aspect Morillas stresses that it is not good either to be always with the tensioned rope: "Playing three games a week is almost impossible to grant 'free days' Which is about food.We have to recover and that is very important, although it is true that we have looked for moments to give a little freedom in some things.In the end, football is a very psychological sport and the footballer has to If you are six months without giving any caprice, in the end the player gets tired and can affect him psychologically when it comes to playing. "
Source: UCAM
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