On the eve of the biggest media event of the year, virtually all its aspects are being taken to pieces and examined one by one. But a soccer world championship involves such a lot of facets and possibilities that even the most obvious can hardly be neglected. Thus alongside the independent variables that will decide the Japanese-Korean event, there is also room for a series of investigations into issues with more or less tangible aspects which, as usual, will provoke a number of contrasting stances. Gaining in popularity, in the category somewhere in between medicine and vox populi, is a survey that is attracting increasingly more widespread interest given the highly competitive nature of the event - the more or less positive relationship between sex and professional sporting activity.
Curiously enough, just a few dozen kilometres away, in Tuscany, two different ideologies on the subject have come face to face. Mid-May; Italian soccer team in retreat at Coverciano before the World Championships, and at the same time, at Uliveto (Pisa) a conference of sports doctors and experts on the theme of the effects of sexual activity on sporting results.
But while Italian Team Manager Trapattoni was warning his team to keep off sex for the entire duration of the far-east event (“you can make up for it when you get back to Italy”) from the rooms of the spa park came another message - science has ascertained that physical performance is not affected by healthy sexual activity. In particular, Bruno Fabbri, director of Padua’s sports medicine centre, refutes the conviction of “cast at all cost”. According to the professor in fact, it is more likely that physical performance be improved by sex rather than by forced abstinence, which causes changes in normal sexual intercourse schedules.
This is the key concept expressed by Fabbri, who to support what he says offers scientific evidence showing that sex in no way affects sporting activities. Inevitable but also interesting at this point would be to know what the various national teams playing in the event think on the subject. In the end we shall see who was more or less right on the basis of results. Meanwhile the past can teach us a thing or two. Starting in 1974 when Holland, which lost the final against West Germany, taught the world a different way of playing football and living retreats. The players were in fact able to meet their wives whenever they wanted, as requested by Cruyff and team-mates, to prevent any prohibition creating nasty problems. Something that occurred for instance with the Argentine team during the same event, with Ayala molesting a German journalist during an interview. But above all, Telch, who went even further and was accused of raping a maid in the hotel where the south-Americans were staying. But to come back to the present, meaning to this year’s event, we could draw up a sort of list of “good and bad” team managers, against or in favour of sexual abstinence. We have already mentioned Trapattoni, and of the same opinion - against - are Luiz Felipe Scolari, the Brazil coach and Mirko Jozic, of Croatia. “No sex, all energies to be dedicated to the sport”.
The permissive, on the other hand, are by far the majority, starting with Eriksson, who has already accepted the presence of wives and children at the Dubai retreat and who is joined by the French, current World Champions, South Africa, Sweden and Denmark and Senegal. Among other latter group members is however Ecuador, which has already been eliminated and which, according to team manager, Hernan Gomez, should have reaped benefit by making love even the day before a world cup match. But maybe the problems and limits of his players were more of a technical and tactical nature. The fact is, to come back to the Uliveto seminar, that as far as soccer is concerned, there are too many subjective variables. For example, psychological. “I was convinced that sex before a match was a bad thing and so I used to shut shop on Monday evening. “That is how Aldo Agroppi, former player and coach, expresses himself on the subject. “Then however, I’d take a look at the behaviour of my team-mate, Paolo Pulici (the famous “Puliciclone”, so called by Gianni Brera), and become less convinced that my theories were correct. He continued having sex right up to Sunday morning. Then he’d go onto the field and score regularly, while I often played badly”. On the other hand, the widespread conviction that an athlete, especially before a big match or event, has to keep off sex if he doesn’t want to weaken his physical strength, has been losing ground for some time.
But above all since a team of researchers, coordinated by the andrology specialist Jannini of Aquila University, recently analysed the levels of testosterone during sexual intercourse. These levels rise to induce the body to persevere. This testosterone always accompanies aggressive behaviour. In the case of sports where considerable physical vigour is required therefore - for example, rugby, boxing, ice-hockey and soccer - it seems best to have regular sexual intercourse, more or less twice a week, in order to achieve the best performance on the field. A sort of “natural doping”. The captain of the Italian team, Maldini and players Nesta and Di Livio above all, ought to be affected by this theory. For them, during the free days of the world tournament, it would be only right to have intimate moments with their partners. But Trapattoni does not want to hear of it. Even though the example he gave, when he was a player, would seem to point in the opposite direction. 1960 Olympic Games. During a retreat with the national team, one free evening, he met Paola, who four years later became his wife. A long happy marriage that has not however managed to change the mind of the strategist from Cusano Milanino.

translated by Interpres sas