The world of football and the world of ED medication is surprisingly closely linked, and not always for the reasons you might expect.
When people think of Viagra tablets and football, the first thought is likely of the late football legend Pele, who was the most visible international face of Pfizer’s brand of sildenafil PDE5 inhibitor tablets.
But whilst Pele’s plea (dubbed into English by Peter Serafinowitz of all people) to talk to your doctor because he would is famous and has left a mark on his legacy as indelible as his countless highlights both on and on the pitch, it is not the only time football and Viagra have been linked.
In fact, whilst Pele’s infamous retort to Cristiano Ronaldo that he will always have Viagra after the latter broke his scoring record is incredible, he is not even the only legendary footballer and World Cup winner linked to Viagra, but not necessarily in a way you would expect.
The Little Genius
Whilst there are few players that come close to Pele’s accolades, one of these also happens to have a story linked to ED medication, albeit in a very strange set of circumstances.
It would be impossible to sum up Lionel Messi’s skill, uniqueness and almost complete set of accolades outside of a full book, but the fact is that people believe he pulled Argentina single-handedly to their first World Cup since 1986 when fellow countryman Diego Maradona did the same.
The connection between Messi and Viagra is linked to international play, and specifically, one of the national teams Argentina regularly play in CONMEBOL: Bolivia.
During World Cup qualifiers and the Copa América, Argentina regularly play in La Paz, the world’s highest capital city and one that sits as high as 4100 metres above sea level.
Even for tourists, the high altitude and low air supply are difficult to cope with until you acclimatise, so teams travelling to La Paz for football matches tend to suffer greatly.
One of the worst cases was Messi himself, who in one infamously brutal match in 2013 was sick on the pitch.
The solution, it was believed, was to take a combination of caffeine, paracetamol and Viagra, similar to the common cold and flu medication which substituted sildenafil with phenylpropanolamine, a decongestant that is on the World Anti-Doping Authority’s banned substance list.
One of the most infamous pieces of folklore relating to sildenafil is that it helps to prevent oxygen deprivation at high altitudes, in particular stopping pulmonary and cerebral edemas on some of the world’s highest mountains.
However, studies on this effect are inconclusive at all but the very highest altitudes and it would turn out that Argentina had far worse issues in this particular match.
Hours before kick-off, Lionel Messi received a four-match ban for swearing at an official in a match vs Chile, one that was lifted much too late for Argentina to avoid a painful 2-0 loss.
This tactic has been regularly used by clubs playing outside of La Paz, since it is not on the banned substance list and anecdotally helps to ward off the effects of altitude sickness.
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