LUXURIOUS, beautiful, welcoming, desirable. Yes, Roman Abramovich’s yacht is the No 1 tourist destination for footballers this summer. Mooring now at a harbour near you — if you’re a top European player or coach, of course. Great deals available. Frank Arnesen highly recommends the lunches.
Roman’s yacht is pretty big, I understand, but sadly there’s not enough room for everyone. So where else might players go to soak up the sun after a season of soaking up the pressure? Clue: not Bognor Regis. A few years back I sat in a Jacuzzi with some of the lads from Nancy and we talked holiday destinations. I expected to hear the sort of places the British lads favoured: Greece, Majorca, Mauritius. But one player announced he was going hiking for a week. Hiking? I thought to myself, that doesn’t sound very relaxing. I hope there are pubs on the route. He tried to persuade me of the benefits of walking 20 miles a day with a rucksack on your back. Thanks but no thanks.
Players are generally more adventurous on the Continent. Bixente Lizarazu, the former France full back, used to go surfing every summer and skiing in the winter break. Weird. My attitude was that having put my body through hell for the past nine months, it deserved a little rest. In any case, clauses in many players’ contracts forbid certain types of activity, such as playing other sports, because of the injury risk.
The present trend is for top footballers to have more than one summer holiday. A week in Dubai, perhaps, but it’s too hot and there’s not much to do, so then head to Portugal for the golf and more beautiful weather. Players rarely travel to the far corners of the globe — after a season of coaches, planes and hotels, the last thing you want is a long journey.
One cheeky plan that has happened a few times is for players to tell their wives or girlfriends the club have organised a holiday — sorry, darling, just for the players — when in fact the squad have planned it themselves. Cue mayhem in some sun-drenched location. One time in Portugal I kept bumping into footballers. I watched a kickabout on a beach and was impressed by the goalkeeper. Then I realised it was John Lukic, the former Arsenal and Leeds United No 1. Usually, though, I avoided the obvious player hangouts. I wanted to devote time to my family. Periods apart from the game recharged me and made me hungry to return.
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Seasons are so long these days that players should be allowed to let their hair down. But they should always keep their guard up. Ibiza is probably not a wise destination. I went there in the 1980s when I was single and it was wild, the kind of fun that is tempting but dangerous for a well-known young player. When you’re in your late teens or early twenties you want to go away with your mates, but the chances are they’re not famous and don’t have your money. So you have a cheap holiday and it gets messy. Jermaine Pennant had problems in Greece this month, claiming tourists made fun of him.
Some managers hand their players detailed instructions on fitness routines to do throughout the summer. Most take that idea about as seriously as when teachers would give you homework to do in the summer holidays. Still, clubs weigh their players at the end of the season and at the beginning of the next, and if you come back overweight, you’re fined. If that isn’t enough of an incentive to be sensible, the damage that can be done if you’re unfit and fat at the start of a campaign ought to be. I had to maintain some level of fitness over the summer because if I didn’t my weight would balloon.
A bad pre-season can blight the season itself. At Gillingham I was negligent one summer, came back overweight, pushed too hard to recover the lost ground and got injured. And pre-season training is damned hard. Managers push you to your limits. During the season you don’t train hard just before matches; in pre-season, you do. I was often stiff, sore — and scared.
Fear is a great motivator. At Marseilles I worked very hard one summer because I was worried they were thinking of letting me go. One player I often see in my local gym is searching for a club and he’s anxious. I tell him to get as fit as he can because when he goes for trials in a couple of weeks he’ll only have a short time to impress and if he’s fit he’ll have an edge.
After the 1994 World Cup I went straight to the Bahamas. The whole holiday was spoilt because I was out of contract and didn’t have a club lined up. I spent my time on tenterhooks, making calls and fretting about the future. Hundreds of players this summer will know the feeling.