Two River players hired a private chef who designed a special diet to enhance their performance

Nutrition is very important in the athlete. And every time he is more immersed in the preparation. Football is no exception. AND almost all schools have a discipline professional to organize and put together food routines. Gamers are even very interested in taking care of what they eat. To such an extent that they even realize their own projects in their lives outside of professional activity.

are the cases of Esequiel boat AND Pablo Solari, For example. The River footballers have a private chef who not only cooks for them but also plans their meals, beyond the plans followed by Marcelo Pudelka, the club’s nutritionist. And both players, according to what they confessed clarion– agree that the new way of eating has helped them improve their performance on the pitch.

“I have a special diet that has improved me one hundred percent. Sometimes it is a sin not to know and not to follow a food routine. But it’s very important. As well as training. So I made a routine with food and it improved a lot,” Solari told this newspaper.

Solari, together with his brother Santiago, who plays Defense and Justice and Barco, follows a particular diet, Designed by Ricardo Ortiz, a 39-year-old chef who has attended many sports nutrition courses and today works almost exclusively for football players.

“Here the idea is to balance things so that the player works well with his body and suffers as little damage as possible. Players lose between 3 and 5 kilos per game, lose mineral salts in minutes and potassium phosphorus. So, my intention is to give the body good fuel so that it reacts well and values ​​its talent,” commented Ortiz, who first met Barco through a mutual friend, an Independiente fan like him , he commented in dialogue with this newspaper.

Ortiz says he builds the food routine based on his knowledge and how players eat. Therefore, the healthy dish for a soccer player, according to his book, includes vegetables, both raw and cooked; whole grains and tubers, whether they are rice, oats, wheat and derivatives, such as wholemeal flour, bread and pasta and also potatoes and sweet potatoes; fish, poultry, legumes, nuts and derivatives. And red meats are limited and other processed meats are avoided, as are cured meats. To drink, mostly water and infusions, such as tea or coffee without sugar. And for dessert, fruit, which can be of any variety and if it’s in season, all the better.

“If you have a Ferrari, you don’t put ordinary or super petrol in it. Put premium. It’s the same here, you have to strengthen the body, it’s not about suffering with food, but inside what they can eat to feel good in training and in competition, that they eat rich and varied, “said Ortiz, who also accompanied Enzo Fernández in his diet before going to Europe and whose motto is: “If they have several matches in a row or a long journey to go and play in the international cup, you have to fill up the tank”.

So when they have frequent matches, Ortiz, who worked for a few years in the AFA when Diego Maradona was the technical director of the national team, tries to give them more protein and carbohydrates. And although he received information that Demichelis’ coaching staff forbade carbohydrates and starch, he clarifies it look for carbohydrates in vegetables and legumes and not in traditional pasta. He doesn’t give him flour or durum wheat noodles, he gives him rice noodles, which are made with chickpeas and oats, which footballers really like.

And Ortiz, who it also deals with catering for birthday eventslike the one that Barco and Lucas Beltrán celebrated together -they have their birthday on the same day, March 29-, reinforces his idea of ​​what players ingest after matches: “They have to eat a good meal to recover the petrol, such as example a chorizo ​​steak ​​​​with potatoes and salad”.