Petrolul Ploiești ⚽️
Reviving Legacy with Modern Nutrition 🇷🇴
Petrolul Ploiești isn’t just a football club. It’s a pillar of Romanian football heritage. With 4 League Titles, 3 Romanian Cup victories, and the unforgettable 3-1 triumph over Liverpool in 1966, this club carries weight, tradition, and ambition. In 2022, I stepped in as a Performance Nutritionist with a clear goal. To elevate every aspect of nutritional practice across all levels of the club.
Football
2 Seasons
Performance Nutritionist
League
Romanian Superliga
From Senior Squad to Academy Players
I joined the technical staff at a pivotal moment, contributing to the team’s ambition to return to top-flight consistency through science based performance interventions. My role was wide: from match-day nutrition and recovery, to player education and supplement safety, no detail was too small.
For the senior squad, I began by assessing the club’s existing nutritional framework, identifying areas of opportunity in energy availability, fueling windows, and hydration routines. I introduced a season long structure aligned with matchday cycles (MD-3 to MD+2), ensuring players were optimally prepared, fueled, and recovered.
Simultaneously, I worked across all youth levels — from U13 to U18 — building a player centered service that emphasised development, long term health, and performance progression. This involved:
Age appropriate, food first education, personalised by team and growth stage
Position specific fueling plans, especially during high load periods or tournaments
Injury nutrition protocols for rehab and return to play
Nutrition to support strength, growth, and endurance for both senior and academy players
Empowering Through Education
Beyond just giving meal plans or supplement lists, I focused on building understanding. I led regular interactive workshops, both in groups and 1-on-1 settings, guiding athletes to see how nutrition directly influences energy levels, focus, recovery, and long term development.
All interventions were based on current research in performance nutrition and implemented in collaboration with strength coaches, physios, and sport scientists. I kept meticulous records of dietary intakes, body composition, hydration markers, and supplement use with regular feedback loops to adjust strategies based on player data.
A key pillar of my work was managing a supplement program that complied strictly with ANAD and WADA guidelines, reducing risk, improving transparency, and aligning with international anti-doping standards.
Impact That Goes Beyond the Pitch
The outcome wasn’t just seen in numbers. It was seen in how players approached training, how they recovered faster, and how the club began to embrace nutrition as a core part of its footballing identity.
This case wasn’t just about implementing plans, it was about building a performance culture, one meal, one workshop, and one strategy at a time.
