Jet lag could make a Greece 2004 upset even less likely in Qatar 2022

This World Cup, teams won’t be able to complain about how far they have had to travel within the host country to get to their matches. The furthest any team will have to travel from their hotel to a match will be 55km. This is because of how small Qatar is. When considering sleep, this means less travel fatigue and a more consistent sleep environment (as all teams have their own base for the entire tournament). That said, certain teams are at a greater risk of jet lag and specific players play in a role that is more heavily impacted by sleep impairment.

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Why some World Cup Teams are at Greater Risk than Others?

While all jet lag can have a major impact on performance, some teams are at greater risk than others. The most obvious reason for this is that there is a greater time difference between certain countries and Qatar, with research indicating that it takes, on average, a person one full day per hour time difference to overcome jet lag. Additionally, the direction of travel can also play a role. Studies have shown that jet lag is more severe when travelling eastward, as opposed to westward. This is because our body clocks tend toward slightly more than 24 hours. Research in the field bears this out, with west coast American teams in both American Football and Baseball struggling much more away from home than teams from the east coast of America.??

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From a performance perspective, this means some countries will benefit from feeling fresh within a day or so of arriving in Qatar. Other countries, without utilising sleep coaching guidance, can expect it to take a whole week for them to feel as good as usual. By that point, their first match of the tournament will likely already be upon them.?

Why does this matter?

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• Poor memory retention, e.g. making tactical guidance less effective
• Worse recovery, resulting in less intensity in training sessions?
• More susceptibility to overreaching, increasing the risk of injury?
• A greater likelihood of risk taking and poor concentration, leading to more mistakes
• Worse fine motor control and skill execution, meaning players will be performing at percentiles lower than they normally would

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In a tournament where 3 matches are the difference between knockout qualification and an early flight home, there’s no room for a slow start to the tournament because of a controllable factor like jet lag.?

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So, which teams are at greatest risk?

Well, it’s too simplified to say the countries with the fewest time zones between them and Qatar, like the European teams, have the lowest risk. For example, one of the tournament favourites, Argentina, has a time difference of 6 hours compared to Qatar. If all players were travelling from Argentina, you’d expect them to struggle to have fully recovered from their jet lag before their first fixture of the tournament against Saudi Arabia on 22nd November. However, the reality is that because the World Cup is in the middle of domestic seasons, many players will likely fly straight to the World Cup from their clubs and meet up with their team in Qatar. In their latest squad, Argentina only had 1 player playing outside of Europe - Franco Armani of River Plate (3rd choice GK).

So, instead of there being a European country advantage, there is instead an advantage for countries where the majority of their players play in Europe. What this means is that the strongest teams in the tournament are going to have a significant sleep advantage. The top 10 teams, in terms of current odds of winning the tournament, will all have almost entirely Europe-based players: Brazil, France, England, Argentina, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, and Denmark.?

In contrast, many promising yet ‘underdog’ teams will have to contend with a much larger proportion of their squads travelling from regions that will lead to significant jet lag upon arriving in Qatar:

• South Korea (81%)
• Mexico (69%)
• Ecuador (54%)
• Canada (46%)
• USA (42%)
• Japan (23%)

What this means is that, without sleep coaching, the chances of a Greece 2004 type of surprise victory of a major international tournament could be even less likely in 2022.?

And which players might struggle to find their best form early in the tournament?

Travel fatigue and jet lag have a significant impact on physical intensity, creativity and skill execution. Although we can expect all types of players who are travelling across multiple time zones to be impacted by jet lag and travel fatigue at the start of the tournament, there are certain roles that could be impacted more.

A player who is expected to collect the ball under pressure and be press-resistant, like CDMs for teams who play a possession-oriented style of play, is at particular risk. This is because this role requires fantastic fine motor skills and an aversion to inappropriate risk taking, with any mistakes leading to significant repercussions for the team. Poor sleep quality has been consistently associated with deficits in fine motor skills, including dribbling and passing in footballers, and an increase in risk taking.?

On top of this, goalkeepers are at particular risk as they also play in a role where inappropriate risk taking is easily punished. Poor concentration is a common feature of jet lag and, again, concentration is a hallmark of any goalkeeper’s game. Goalkeeping mistakes are far more likely to lead to a goal conceded than any other position, and with modern goalkeepers now being expected to be strong at passing out from the back under pressure, we could expect goalkeeper mistakes to be more likely for the teams that are at greater risk of jet lag.

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Why this disadvantage doesn’t have to be inevitable

So, certain countries are more likely to experience jet lag, and the favourites to win the tournament could be starting Qatar 2022 with a head start when it comes to their training and preparation. This isn’t inevitable, though.?

Many of the leagues that these jet lag disadvantaged countries have players playing in, such as the MLS, K League and Liga MX, have club seasons that finish slightly before the European leagues. In the case of Liga MX, they have actually put their season’s break a week earlier than originally planned to give the team more time to prepare.?

For a country like Mexico to avoid the impact of jet lag on their training and first match in Qatar, they should be flying the players out to Qatar as soon as they can after the Liga MX season breaks. This gives their players more time to adapt to the local time zone, so that by the time that those top 10 countries fly out, Mexico will be in the same position (if not better) jet lag wise, than the players flying from Europe. For players who can’t fly out early for any reason, they should be adapting their sleep times in the week preceding flying out to pre-adjust to the time zone in Qatar. This can be carefully planned with support from a specialist sleep coach.?

Take home messages

1. Travel fatigue will be less of an issue for players at this World Cup, but a mid-season tournament means jet lag could have an even bigger impact than in other international major tournaments
2. The top 10 favourites for the tournament are at an advantage sleep-wise, as almost all their players play in European leagues meaning they only have to contend with 1-3 hours of jet lag
3. Many of the underdogs in the tournament will need to be more prepared to avoid giving a head start to their competitors
4. Jet lag has a huge impact on many facets within football, but players who are expected to collect the ball under pressure and goalkeepers are particularly vulnerable
5. Jet lag doesn’t have to be inevitable and specialist sleep guidance can help bridge the gap, preventing opposition teams from obtaining a natural sleep advantage

What’s Sleep Athletic?

At Sleep Athletic we help elite athletes and sports teams unlock the power of sleep to supercharge performance and recovery.?

Our aim is to help athletes to sleep better, so they feel better, perform better, and recover faster.