Shall we go by train? Why football stars prefer to fly
Mbappé first rolled his eyes, then burst into laughter. Apparently, the idea of himself (a flighty attacker with an annual salary of 1.2 billion crowns) in a kind of car on the tracks among ordinary people seemed insurmountably comical to him.
PSG coach Christophe Galtier, who was sitting next to him, made a similar adjustment, adding a humorous remark that “next time we will go to a match in a sailboat on wheels”. He soon regretted his insularity, as a wave of criticism from fans and politicians later forced him to apologize and assure the public that he and the club take environmental protection very seriously.
It’s about comfort, but also about health
But let’s leave the prima donnas from the city above the Seine aside. Parisian “sheikhs” are far from the only ones who prefer private planes even for relatively short distances. It concerns the general part of rich European clubs. Not so long ago, for example, (now former) Chelsea coach Thomas Tuchel bitterly complained that the embarrassing 0-3 defeat at Leeds was due to the fact that he had to travel by bus for technical reasons.
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One aspect may be a certain “pampering”. “I feel that flying belongs to a certain lifestyle. People in certain positions consider it normal, their guaranteed right,” he told Deutsche Welle transport expert Giulio Mattioli. He calculated that the aforementioned flight of Mbappé et al. to Nantes took 42 minutes and produced up to 17 times more pollutants than a two-hour rail journey.
It was Deutsche Welle that recently investigated how Bundesliga teams travel to matches. The top competition in Germany pays a lot of attention to the environment, and this is also different in that even big clubs like Borussia Dortmund prefer buses and trains for shorter distances. Teams from the western states usually only fly east to Berlin or Leipzig and south to Munich.
However, it is not only about comfort, but also about taking care of the health of footballers and their often extremely stressed bodies. According to research, a longer time spent in vehicles shortly after sports means a greater risk of injury in the area of knees or hips.
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“On a bus or a train, you can reduce the risk by walking in the aisle between the seats, but any journey lasting more than two hours is unpleasant,” Julia Eyre, an expert on the health of athletes, told Deutsche Welle. Every half hour that football clubs save thanks to the plane is thus an advantage for the best players.
In the Czech Republic, summers are rare
In the Czech league, the distances are not that great (although the journey from Pilsen to Ostrava, for example, has its own specifics) and the vast majority of clubs opt for comfortable buses or trains. At least they rarely get stuck in a traffic jam, which is a risk that road pilgrims cannot avoid on the infamous “one and one”.
However, there are also rare exceptions. For example, a few years ago Sparta from Prague flew to Zlín, or to nearby Kunovice, due to an inflated program in cup Europe. Last January, Letenští took off again by plane for a fight in Opava (landing in Ostrava). However, it did not become a habit even among rich Prague residents.
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After all, there are also opposite cases. Fans can go to the derby with Bohemka by tram. It’s exactly two stops…