How Gareth Bale and Real Madrid sleep their way to the top

22.04.2015 18:30

At 1pm every afternoon, the hustle and bustle of Real Madrid's Valdebebas training ground grinds to a halt and the facility resembles a ghost town.

A silence descends over the complex for the following two hours as players and staff close their eyes and drift into a siesta before waking and resuming their day - but they're not sleeping on the job.

The scene is a window into football's relentless pursuit of marginal gains as clubs across Europe turn to technology, purpose-built facilities and sleep experts to recharge their multi-million pound assets and gain a competitive advantage.

Helping 'owl' Bale overcome morning phobia

Those factors prompted Real's sports scientist and conditioning coach, Englishman Jack Nayler, to invite elite sport sleep coach Nick Littlehales to the club in December 2013 to deliver a workshop to manager Carlo Ancelotti and his squad.

Littlehales began his work in the field prescribing specific mattress types to Gary Pallister and Ryan Giggs at Manchester United in the mid-1990s in a bid to cure their respective back and hamstring problems.

He has since gone on to work with the England football team, Team GB, 2012 Tour de France winner Sir Bradley Wiggins and a host of Premier League clubs, including Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Southampton.

(BBC)

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