Jamie Vardy’s goalscoring escapades are fuelled by pizza, pints and port, according to his former Leicester team-mate Ritchie De Laet.
Vardy this season broke into the top 20 Premier League goalscorers of all time, having taken the unorthodox route from non-league to the top of the English game.
According to De Laet, his pre-match fuel is far from the chicken and rice staple one might expect from a top-level athlete but, with more than 200 career goals to his name, it seems to work for him.
‘I had a glass, and he finished the bottle!’
Now playing for Royal Antwerp, De Laet told Belgian outlet Het Nieuwsblad: “The night before a game, Jamie drinks pints and only eats pizza.
“For example, when he beat Ruud Van Nistelrooy’s record by scoring in 11 consecutive games; the night before, the bus driver bought us a bottle of port. We hid it in our hotel room.
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“I had a glass, and Jamie made sure to finish the rest of the bottle”.
What is Vardy's matchday diet?
Vardy revealed his caffeine-laced matchday diet in an interview with Men’s Health.
"With a traditional 3pm Saturday kick-off, I'll have a can of Red Bull as soon as I wake up, which is gone in 30 seconds," he said.
"I don't have breakfast and won't eat anything until I have a cheese and ham omelette with baked beans at 11.30am. I wash that down with another Red Bull, which I also neck quickly.
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"We get into the dressing room an hour and a half before kick-off, and I'll have a third can of Red Bull straight away."
'He bit into the glass at a fancy restaurant'
More bizarre than Vardy's pizza and pints was the behaviour of former Leicester defender Marcin Wasilewski, which De Laet recalled with bemusement.
"Marcin was really a very nice person. Unusual, but nice. The kind of guy you laugh with, but who does weird stuff," he said.
"I remember going to eat with him in a very fancy restaurant. All of a sudden, he grabs his glass and literally bites into it, without flinching. He had pieces of glass all over the place, looks at me, and starts laughing. I didn't understand it at all. "