HOW COVID-19 HAS CHANGED HUMAN HABITS
With the arrival of COVID-19 in football, the way of life has been modified (Mon-López, García-Aliaga, Ginés and Muriarte, 2020). These changes have produced negative effects on physiological variables in most of the population, and also in emotional aspects, also of course in elite athletes (Mon-López, García-Aliaga, Ginés and Muriarte, 2020).
Many of us have suffered sleep problems, anxiety or stress in this forty years. This is obviously no different for elite athletes, where both training and sleep quality (two very important aspects for the performance of the player) were modified (Mon-López, García-Aliaga, Ginés and Muriarte, 2020).
There were restrictions to compete and train with the resources available. The efforts of football such as high intensity sprints, accelerations, decelerations, changes of direction, contact, decision making … showed the great risk of injury that could occur when reintroducing these competitive demands (Stokes, Jones, Bennett , Close, Gill, Hull, Kasper, Kemp, Mellalieu, Peirce, Stewart, Wall, West and Cross, 2020). It is recommended that, after the return, we take into account which players we have with the highest risk of injury and work especially on their prevention.
THE CONFINEMENT CAUSED THE TIME AND QUALITY OF SLEEP TO BE MODIFIED
To corroborate this, through a questionnaire, with a sample of 175 professional soccer players, it was found that during confinement the training load was reduced and time and quality of sleep were modified (Mon-López, García-Aliaga, Ginés and Muriarte, 2020 ). The mood was also affected. In summary, sleep hours increased but training time was reduced (Mon-López, García-Aliaga, Ginés and Muriarte, 2020). This aspect makes the sessions of less quality due to the lack of quality of sleep, and may even influence the subjective perception of the sessions.
In professional players, subjective perception values were higher than in semi-professional players during confinement. It may be due to the conditions, resources and organizational form of the club, as well as the exclusive dedication to training by professional players (Bisciotti, Eirale, Corsini, Baudot, Saillant and Chalabi, 2020). This subjective perception of effort was lower during confinement compared to the season, with a large effect size, probably due to the non-interaction and non-opposition, so present in soccer.During confinement, anxiety and depression disorders occurred among professional soccer players. It was significantly higher during the pandemic than before the health emergency, so it has evidently influenced this aspect (Gouttebarge, Ahmad, Mountjoy, Rice and Kerkhoffs, 2020). Especially, this anxiety occurs in those footballers worried about their future as players, either by age, by contracts, or by the ignorance of the return of the competition. (Gouttebarge, et al. 2020). In short, and as we can see, many coaches and coaches have also been very concerned about their future. Some in ERTE, others without solutions, but ultimately work concern is the factor that most justifies this increased stress.