Jermaine Jenas has explained how draconian Juande Ramos’ dietary restrictions were, revealing that the former Tottenham manager made the squad consume a ‘disgusting’ energy drink at half-time.
Ramos arrived at Tottenham after enjoying tremendous success at Sevilla and he made a fine start to his following his appointment as manager in North London in 2007 to succeed Martin Jol.
Spurs were expected to push forward and challenge the top four in the Spaniard’s first full season after he signed players like Luka Modric, Giovani Dos Santos, David Bentley, and Roman Pavlyuchenko in the summer of 2008. The Spaniard led the team to a Carabao Cup just months after taking over at White Hart Lane.
Instead, the team had a terrible start to the 2008–09 league season, picking up just two points from their first eight games. As a result, Ramos was fired and Harry Redknapp took over.
The disgusting Juande Ramos cocktail at Tottenham
Ramos’ severe dietary regulations have already been described by numerous former Tottenham players; according to talkSPORT, all sauces and sugar were prohibited from the training field.
Now that Jenas has revealed more, we can understand some of the habits of the former Tottenham manager and his trainers.
Regarding Ramos, the 41-year-old stated on That Peter Crouch Podcast: “This guy took everything! No sauces allowed if it was spaghetti. At the intermission, he even defeated Lucozades. Either this specific blend or water was present.
To be honest, this did indeed occur. This unique mixture had pasta, rice, potatoes, and water that had been combined with ice. He distributed it and it tasted like wallpaper paste, so we complained that it tasted horrible, but he insisted that it was normal and everything was OK. Sip it.
“I’ll do something for you next week,” he replied, adding bourbon biscuits to make it a chocolate-flavored version of the same dish. It was repulsive.
Juande was directing the fitness coach while she carried out her duties. It was insane. There was this strange man who flew in from Spain every single week. You would enter this room, step on his scales, and he would grab every piece of fat off of you before saying, “Okay, leave.”
Up until 15 to 20 years ago, it’s safe to say that Spanish and Italian football was ahead of the English game in terms of sports science and nutrition.
But as Ramos’s problems demonstrated, all the little advantages that either side may reap from these advancements are meaningless if they result in a low team morale.
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