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Welcome to Issue 22 of my newsletter.

The FIFA World Cup has started.

For many people, that means football, fixtures, goals, drama, national identity, debates, and late nights watching matches.

For me, it also brings back memories of being involved in tournament football from the inside.

In 2018, I was part of the support staff with the Egyptian Men’s National Football Team at the FIFA World Cup in Russia.

That experience reinforced something I already knew from working in elite sport, but perhaps felt more clearly in that environment:

Tournament nutrition is not simply about having the perfect nutrition plan.

It is about making the right decisions under pressure.

The World Cup is a useful reminder of what sport nutrition looks like when the context is demanding, the stakes are high, and the margin for error feels small.

There are matches to prepare for.
Players to recover.
Travel demands.
Different hotels.
Different foods.
Different kick-off times.
Different climates.
Different routines.
Different personalities.
Different cultural expectations.
Different levels of trust, buy-in, and experience.

The theory matters.

But the theory has to survive the tournament.

The plan is only the starting point

In sport nutrition, we often talk about planning.

And rightly so.

Good preparation matters.

Before a tournament, there should be clear thinking around fuelling, hydration, recovery, supplementation, gastrointestinal comfort, travel, food provision, and match-day routines.

But a plan is not the same as practice.

Once the tournament begins, things change.

Schedules shift.
Players respond differently.
Travel disrupts routine.
Meals are delayed.
Appetites fluctuate.
Recovery windows narrow.
Injuries happen.
Selection changes.
Emotions rise.
Media pressure builds.
Sleep is affected.
The next match becomes the only thing that matters.

In that environment, the practitioner’s job is not simply to enforce the plan.

It is to adapt the plan without losing the principles behind it.

That distinction matters.

A rigid plan can look professional before the tournament starts.

But a useful plan is one that can flex when the tournament becomes real.

The basics become more important, not less

Major tournaments can make nutrition feel highly specialised.

And in some ways, it is.

The environment is elite.
The athletes are elite.
The pressure is elite.
The consequences are significant.

But what often matters most is not a complicated intervention.

It is the consistent execution of fundamentals in a difficult environment.

Are players eating enough?
Are they fuelling key sessions and matches appropriately?
Are they recovering between games?
Are they hydrated?
Are they tolerating foods well?
Are they sleeping?
Are routines stable enough?
Are they confident in what they are doing?
Are nutrition decisions supporting performance rather than adding stress?

In tournament football, the basics are not basic because they are simple.

They are basic because everything else depends on them.

A sophisticated supplement strategy cannot compensate for poor fuelling.

A recovery product cannot fully compensate for inadequate energy intake, poor sleep, or chaotic routines.

A detailed hydration plan is only useful if players understand it, trust it, and can actually follow it.

The performance environment may be world-class.

But the nutrition work still comes back to the same question:

What does this player need to be ready for the next performance?

Tournament football is about repeated readiness

One of the distinctive challenges of tournament football is repeated readiness.

It is not just about preparing for one match.

It is about preparing, performing, recovering, reassessing, and preparing again.

The next match comes quickly.

That means nutrition has to support a cycle:

Prepare. Perform. Recover. Repeat.

Within that cycle, decisions have to be practical.

What does the player need before the match?
What can they tolerate?
What has worked before?
What needs to be available immediately after the match?
How quickly do we need to restore energy and carbohydrate availability?
What does the travel schedule allow?
What will the player actually consume?
What does the next training day require?
What is the priority now: recovery, readiness, body composition maintenance, gut comfort, sleep, or simply getting enough in?

The answer changes depending on the player and the context.

A player who played 90 minutes has different needs from a player who did not play.

A player carrying fatigue may need a different approach from a player trying to stay sharp while waiting for selection.

A player with poor appetite after matches may need different support from a player who eats easily.

A player who is anxious before games may need simplicity, familiarity, and reassurance more than complexity.

This is why tournament nutrition cannot be reduced to a generic “team plan”.

There needs to be a team structure.

But there also needs to be individual judgement.

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Figure 22. Prepare. Perform. Recover. Repeat. Tournament nutrition is a repeated decision cycle. The aim is not to create a perfect plan, but to support readiness across changing demands, constraints, and recovery windows.

Food is not just fuel

In tournament environments, food is not only a physiological tool.

It is also part of routine, comfort, culture, identity, and team environment.

This is easy to underestimate.

At a major tournament, players are away from home.
They are under pressure.
They are being scrutinised.
They may be dealing with selection disappointment, media attention, family expectations, national pressure, or uncertainty about their role.

Food can become part of stability.

Familiar options matter.
Choice matters.
Cultural preferences matter.
Trust matters.
The dining environment matters.
The timing of meals matters.
The way information is communicated matters.

A technically correct nutrition plan that ignores the human environment is often less useful than a slightly less perfect plan that players understand, trust, and follow.

That does not mean compromising standards.

It means recognising that applied nutrition is not just nutrient delivery.

It is behaviour in context.

Communication matters as much as knowledge

In tournament football, the practitioner rarely works in isolation.

Nutrition decisions sit within a wider performance system.

Coaches.
Doctors.
Physiotherapists.
Strength and conditioning staff.
Chefs.
Team managers.
Players.
Hotel staff.
Logistics staff.

Everyone affects the nutrition environment in some way.

That means communication becomes central.

The practitioner needs to translate nutrition priorities into language that other people can act on.

The chef needs to understand what is required.

The team manager needs to understand timing.

The player needs to understand what matters without feeling overloaded.

The coach needs to trust that nutrition support is helping, not distracting.

The medical team needs to know when something may be related to illness, gastrointestinal issues, or inadequate intake.

In that sense, tournament nutrition is not just about what the practitioner knows.

It is about how well they can integrate that knowledge into the system.

The invisible work matters

Much of the most valuable nutrition work in tournament football is not especially visible.

It is not always the dramatic intervention.

It is checking the meal environment.
Making sure the right foods are available.
Anticipating problems before they happen.
Adjusting options around travel.
Reading the mood of the group.
Simplifying messages.
Supporting individual routines.
Reducing friction.
Helping players make good choices without making nutrition feel like another pressure.

This is why good applied practice can be hard to see.

When it is done well, things often just work.

Players eat.
Routines hold.
Recovery is supported.
Problems are caught early.
The food environment feels normal.
The practitioner is useful without becoming intrusive.

That is not accidental.

It is the result of preparation, judgement, relationships, and attention to context.

What tournament football teaches practitioners

Most practitioners will not work at a World Cup.

But the lessons are still relevant.

Because all performance nutrition happens under constraints.

Your athlete may not be in a national team camp, but they still have constraints.

Work.
School.
Family.
Travel.
Budget.
Food access.
Training times.
Stress.
Sleep.
Preferences.
Beliefs.
Appetite.
Body composition pressures.
Social life.
Confidence.
Readiness to change.

The environment is different, but the principle is the same:

Nutrition advice only becomes useful when it can be applied in the real world.

That is true in a World Cup hotel.

It is true in an academy.

It is true in a university team.

It is true with a recreational runner.

It is true with a busy professional training for HYROX.

It is true with a middle-aged gym-goer trying to improve body composition and performance.

The setting changes.

The need for context does not.

Applied Practice Takeaways

Whether you are supporting elite players or recreational athletes, tournament football offers useful reminders:

1. Build the plan around the performance cycle.​
Prepare, perform, recover, and repeat. Nutrition decisions should support the next demand, not just look good on paper.

2. Protect the fundamentals.​
Energy intake, carbohydrate availability, protein, hydration, meal timing, gut comfort, and sleep support are often the foundations of readiness.

3. Expect the context to change.​
Travel, timing, appetite, selection, stress, and recovery windows can shift quickly. The plan needs principles, not just rules.

4. Make nutrition easier to do.​
Good support reduces friction. Availability, familiarity, timing, communication, and choice often determine whether the plan is followed.

5. Remember that food is human.​
Food is fuel, but it is also routine, culture, comfort, and confidence. Ignoring that makes practice weaker, not stronger.

The practical point

Tournament football reminds us that performance nutrition is rarely about perfect conditions.

It is about better decisions in imperfect conditions.

The practitioner’s role is to understand the science, read the context, support the system, and help athletes do what matters most when it matters most.

That is the work.

Not just writing the plan.

Making the plan work.

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To better practice,
​Dr Laurent Bannock