What Should You Eat Before A Football Match?

Football is no easy sport. Whether you're a fan or a player, there is no debate that the game we all love and adore requires peak physical performance to be on top of your game. Watching the players push themselves to the limit for 90 minutes, week after week, with training in between games, your body must be at its optimum to have a chance of success.

Long gone are the days of greats like Diego Maradona, Paul Gascoigne or George Best, where you could drink, eat and smoke whatever you wanted, yet still turn into a magician with a ball at your feet.

Now, the game is centred around the science of the game, with the ever growing presence of new technology, developing the best diet and exercise plans for each individual to get the best out of their body.

🚨 Brentford have spent around £16m on their research department over the past two seasons. 💰📚

This has resulted in the publication of several academic papers on subjects like training loads, running intensity and positional play. 🕵️‍♂️

Brentford hire PhD students every year to… pic.twitter.com/m1eJpRchYe

— Transfer News Live (@DeadlineDayLive) February 22, 2025

There is so much importance placed onto the diets of professional players, making sure players are eating the proper foods, and cut out all unnecessary foods in order to keep their performance to the max. So, what foods are the best to eat before a football match? We at Football Park thought to take a look.

🚨🚨🌕| #mufc brought in a new lead chef, Omar Meziane, in January and he has proven a 𝗕𝗜𝗚 hit with the players. In a move encouraged by Erik ten Hag, every player has been given an individual nutrition strategy tailored to their specific needs. [@TelegraphDucker] pic.twitter.com/PPE5VhjzHp

— centredevils. (@centredevils) July 30, 2023

What To Eat Before A Football Match

In the build up to a game, the main need players want from their food is carbohydrate based food. Carbohydrates give players high amounts of energy which they must store in their bodies, which can then be utilised to keep them going when they step over that white line.

Carbohydrates are without doubt the most important nutrient to focus on consuming when it comes to preparing yourself for a big game. Foods containing carbohydrates may not necessarily be the healthiest in general, but they can certainly make all the difference in your energy and performance levels before a match.

As well Carbohydrates, protein can also be a good nutrient to consume to enhance performance, as the protein gives growth and repair to the muscles, which is so critical to a footballer who now, on average, will play one game every three days.

In preparation for a game, players and their club nutritionists will be working together to plan what they can eat to give themselves the best chance of a top performance in their upcoming game.

What do Premier League Players Eat Before Games

Interestingly, Arsenal midfielder and England International Declan Rice opened up on his eating habits before a game this season.

During an interview, the former West Ham man claimed that since joining the Gunners, he has changed his eating habits, and now consumes pancakes before a game, as he feels its what gives him high energy.

Rice said that the change to pancakes had came from when he first joined the North London club, when he saw most of the players also eating pancakes before matches. For Rice, he has claimed it has been a complete game changer, and gives him such a high energy boost, sometimes eating as many as eight in a day.

🗣️| Declan Rice: “I have four pancakes before a game. Covered in syrup or honey. I swear to God, it’s the best thing… When I joined the club, I could see the [Arsenal] players eating them and thought to myself, ‘What is going on here?’ But honestly, it’s been a game changer.

“I… pic.twitter.com/igXOCfCLTb

— Arsenal Buzz (@ArsenalBuzzCom) May 23, 2024

Surely if one of England's best midfielders is eating pancakes before a big game, then they must work, and people must consider doing the same?

How Long Before A Football Match Should I Eat?

Another important thing to remember about eating before a football match is timing. It is key that you eat at the right time before a football match, giving the food enough time to get into your system.

As many people will know, there is nothing worse than trying to play on a full, bloated stomach, all because you hadn't ate your last meal early enough to give the food time to settle in your stomach.

When it comes to football , it is claimed that your last big meal before a match should be at least three to four hours before the match. This would therefore be something like pancakes, which Declan Rice highly recommends.

As said before, the best thing to eat in this meal would be foods full of carbohydrates, providing rich amounts of energy to your body.

Eating a big meal three to four hours before the match gives your body enough time to be able to digest the food you've ate, and then store the nutrients inside the food, which you can then use to your advantage once you step onto the pitch. Otherwise, eating later than that wouldn't give the body sufficient time to be able to digest the food.

However, it would be a good idea to have a light snack before the match if you wanted to, but nothing too heavy that will take a long period of time to digest. Although, this is only advised if you feel like you need something extra to eat. If the last big meal three to four hours before was enough for you, then the extra light snack won't provide much more benefit to your performance.

Our Head of Nutrition, Mona Nemmer, talks through the Players’ Menu and how it is incorporated into the Reds training routine 👩‍🍳

Presented by @QuornFoods 🎥 pic.twitter.com/QcJYpq16Te

— Liverpool FC (@LFC) March 27, 2023