7 of the craziest rules enforced by football managers: Pepper, toast, singing all banned…
Football managers will do almost literally anything to get the best out of their players. All about marginal gains, isn’t it? Little details that make you better prepared to win titles and trophies than the opposition.
Sometimes, managers are compelled to do mad sh*t to ensure their players aren’t getting sloppy. Sometimes it’s all about making an impression when starting a new job.
The sort of I don’t know what was going on here when the last joker ran this place, but I’m in charge now! Approach.
We’re taking you on a trip along memory lane to recall some of the most insane rules football managers have imposed upon their respective teams.
No seasoning = good season for the Chels?
Enzo Maresca was recently named as Chelsea’s new boss. The Italian is bringing fitness coach Marcos Alvarez along with him, and Alvarez has a reputation.
When working at Tottenham under Juande Ramos, Alvarez banned many a thing on the canteen menu, including salt & pepper. By god, we hope there’s some f*cking paprika or something kicking about. Plain chicken ain’t the one.
TRY A QUIZ: Can you name every Chelsea manager in Premier League history?
Trappatoni hates mushrooms
When Giovanni Trappatoni took over the Ireland national team reigns, he observed that the players ate an awful lot of mushrooms before games, and it apparently “stunned him into silence.”
He banned the eating of mushrooms before games and, for the life of us, we cannot figure out why. Genuinely think he might just simply dislike mushrooms. Like, they make Super Mario go faster, don’t they? Odd behaviour.
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TRY A QUIZ: Can you name every Chelsea manager in Premier League history?
Paolo Di Canio outlaws singing and ice
Nowhere near the most unhinged thing Di Canio has ever done—the less said the better—but whilst he was managing Sunderland, he decided to ban ice in drinks.
Something to do with indigestion… Not really sure how that works. Just cold, hard water, isn’t it? Ice?
Anyway, he also came down hard on singing in the showers. He reckoned it disrupted concentration and focus. Don’t even try singing in an ice bath.
More like Paolo Di Cantare-no, are we right? That’s one for the Italian speakers out there.
Jose Mourinho goes full Team Rocket
The Special One was Manchester United boss when Pokemon Go! hit the world like a damn hyper beam.
Apparently, some of the playing staff became so obsessed with becoming Pokemon masters that Mourinho felt it necessary to ban the team from playing on the game within 48 hours of a game.
To coach them was his real test. To train them was his cause.
John Toshack & the missing gravy
Back in 2004, John Toshack was in his second spell as Wales manager, and he’d had a big idea. What was his masterplan to elevate Wales’ standing on the international stage?
No f*cking gravy.
That’s right. Chicken, couple of vegetables, and be happy about it. Robbie Savage wasn’t very happy about it and wrote about it in his autobiography, but—listen—at the end of the day, as class as gravy is, it’s probably not worth getting dropped from your national team for.
Actually, no, scratch that, we’d die for gravy.
TRY A QUIZ: Can you name the 28 managers to have taken charge of 50+ Champions League games?
Sunderland ban space
In 1999, Peter Reid was at the helm in Sunderland, and the Black Cats had just signed Swedish midfielder Stefan Schwarz from Valencia. Schwarz didn’t just want to come to Sunderland, though, he wanted to go to space.
Schwarz had put himself on a list to be one of the first people to go on a commercial trip to space. Reidy was having none of that. Literally made sure it was mentioned in Schwarz’s contract that he wasn’t allowed to go to space whilst he was under contract with Sunderland. Unlucky.
Jackie McNamara clamps down on toast
Dundee United’s former manager Jackie McNamara did something drastic. He outlawed toast.
Chairman Stephen Thompson was absolutely all over it. “Jackie is changing the players’ lifestyles and that’s something which appeals to me. So instead of toast for their breakfast, it’s now porridge and Weetabix.”
The team finished 4th in the Scottish Premiership that season—two places higher than the previous year. Maybe McNamara was onto something.