The Problem Is Not Coca-Cola: What Football Still Fails to Understand About Sports Nutrition

Over the past few months, I have repeatedly been told, in different ways, that nutrition is not a priority in youth and amateur football.

Sometimes explicitly.

"We don't need a nutritionist."

"The kids already eat at home."

"We focus on football here."

Every time, I find myself surprised.

Perhaps because I do not observe football solely from a professional perspective. I live it every week on the pitch as a player, coach, and mother of two young footballers.

We constantly talk about technique, tactics, athletic preparation, talent development, and injury prevention. We invest time in training planning, coaching methodologies, and player development.

Yet when nutrition is discussed, the conversation is often reduced to a few simple concepts:

"Don't drink Coca-Cola."

"Don't eat too many sugary foods."

"We need to feed the players at the academy."

To some extent, these are valid points. But they are also incredibly limited.

I spend a great deal of time around football environments. I observe training sessions, matches, tournaments, away trips, dressing rooms, and conversations between coaches and parents.

And precisely because of this, I struggle to understand how nutrition can still be viewed as something separate from performance.

Rarely do I hear nutrition being discussed as a tool to improve training quality, accelerate recovery, support growth, reduce injury risk, or enhance energy availability throughout the season.

The conversation often stops at the simplistic distinction between "good foods" and "bad foods."

This perspective contrasts with what we see in high-performance environments. At the Barça Innovation Hub, nutrition is described as a key component of performance, recovery, and athlete availability. Injury prevention and recovery are increasingly recognized as processes that are influenced by nutrition, which should be individualized according to training load, athlete characteristics, and performance goals.

In other words, nutrition is not treated as something separate from football. It is considered an integral part of player development and performance.

This view is also consistent with the International Olympic Committee's consensus statement on youth athlete nutrition. The document emphasizes that nutrition is not only essential for general health, but also for growth, development, training adaptation, recovery, and sporting performance.

In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs), a condition that occurs when energy intake is insufficient to support training demands, growth, and normal physiological function. Although REDs is often associated with endurance sports or female athletes, low energy availability is also relevant in youth football, particularly during periods of growth, heavy training schedules, and congested competition calendars.

In these situations, the problem is not the occasional sugary drink or sweet snack. The problem is the absence of a nutritional strategy capable of supporting training load and recovery.

The question should not be whether nutrition matters in football.

The real question is how we can use nutrition intelligently to help young athletes train better, recover better, and fully develop their potential.