England manager has blunt response to reports team will use viagra to cope with altitude in Mexico
Britt Jones
Featured Image Credit: Richard Pelham/Getty Images
England Players have been rumored to be planning to use Viagra to aide in their World Cup match against Mexico in Mexico City, and now the team’s manager has issued a clear response to the claims.
Sunday's World Cup round of 16 matches is upon us, with the teams all preparing to go toe-to-toe with each other in a game that could make or break their chances of winning the cup.
However, the preparations are allegedly less about footwork, and more about figuring out how to deal with the altitude at the Estadio Azteca.
According to Al Jazeera, the pitch at the Azteca is 2,240 meters above sea level, which means that the air is thinner and makes breathing difficult.
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Now, if you’re running laps around a large pitch for 90 minutes and having to cope with thinner air to breathe, it could spark issues for the players.
However, when did Viagra become a contender in the options laid out to help players cope with the altitude?
According to England Coach Thomas Tuchel, you can’t believe everything you hear.
During his pre-game press conference on Saturday, he was asked about using Viagra to combat the effects of a high-altitude environment for his players.
"The information to support it didn't reach me, so that's not true," Tuchel said bluntly.
However, legally, the players could take Viagra if they wanted to and wouldn’t be accosted by the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) list of banned substances.
Per the WADA, studies have found that Viagra can help to ‘improve oxygen delivery’, which is something that’ll be harder to find for the England players up in the Mexican venue.
However, the results are subject to individual factors, which it says: “The magnitude of these effects appears to be dictated by the severity of the altitude and associated hypoxia as well as individual susceptibility to hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction.”
As for being a performance enhancer, brands like Sildenafil are ‘unlikely to exert beneficial effects in oxygen delivery or exercise performance at altitudes < 4000 m for the vast majority of the endurance trained men or women.’
This is why it’s not a banned substance.
As for the issues with Mexico’s altitude on the England players, Tuchel was asked about it shortly after they won against DR Congo.
“It is maybe one of the most beautiful fixtures, the most exciting fixtures that you can have, to play against Mexico in the Azteca,” Tuchel said.
“And there will be a lot of obstacles waiting for us, not to mention the altitude will be, of course, a big disadvantage because we cannot physically adapt to it in four days. It’s just impossible.”
Considering Mexico has only lost two out of 89 competitive games there, it doesn’t bode well for England’s chances.