A look inside the Guinea team’s fitness regime
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The Africa Cup of Nations football tournament exerts a lot of physical stress on the players – making the work of teams’ physios essential. That of Guinea opened its doors to FRANCE 24 a few hours before one of their matches to shine a light on this little-noted but pivotal aspect of the sport.
The hotel suite had been emptied of its furniture to make room for three massage tables, the bathroom was dedicated to ice baths and the bedroom was devoted to the body’s post-match recovery, with cryotherapy suits spread out on the bed. A jumble of boxes was full of straps, creams, bandages as well as state of the art technological tools used to protect the fitness of Guinea players.
The team face Gambia in a hotly anticipated clash on Monday. But before that – ahead of their last group match that saw them lose 2-1 to Zimbabwe – the medical staff showed FRANCE 24 what they do.
“This room was supposed to belong to Kaba Diawara [the Guinean manager], but we completely redesigned the space so it was functional and comfortable for looking after the players,” said Guinean head physio Bruno Da Cruz, who has worked with Guinea since 2015, except for an interregnum from 2018 to 2019.
“Whatever hotel we’re staying in,” Da Cruz said. “At the start of the group stage, we were in a base camp in Bafoussam, and they put the care centre 2 kilometres away from the hotel – so it was better to transform my room so we could accommodate the players there.”
“It’s a bit tricky sometimes, but if the players have to go fifteen minutes there and fifteen minutes back for a recovery massage, that’s useless,” he continued.
The Africa Cup of Nations is well-known for putting players’ bodies to the test with high temperatures, matches in early afternoon, pitches stretched to the limits of use, not to mention adapting to very…
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Source : france24
