Effects of Pre-cooling and Cooling Breaks on Thermoregulatory, Physiological and Match Running Responses During Football in Moderate and Hot Temperatures

Funding Information: The authors thank the whole Club Tigres UANL organization for providing part of the necessary support, venue, consumables and equipment, and especially the U18 and U19 team and staff that helped during the experimental testing. We further thank the Portuguese Football Federation for their support and equipment. Finally, we thank the DFL for sponsoring the PhD scholarship of Edgar Schwarz and the UEFA for funding this study. Funding Information: Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. This study was funded by a \u201CUnion des Associations Europ\u00E9ennes de Football (UEFA) Medical Research Grant 2023\u201D. Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2025. ; Purpose: This study investigated the effects of pre-cooling and cooling breaks on thermoregulatory, hydration and running responses in football (soccer) players in moderate and hot temperatures. Methods: Forty male youth footballers participated in at least two of four matches, during which core body temperature (Tcore), heart rate (HR), match running, hydration and perceptual responses were measured. Cooling breaks (CBs), consisting of ice-cold towels and drinks, were compared to drinking breaks (DBs), consisting of passive rest and a temperate drink, applied at the same timeframes. Both were used as pre-cooling for 10 min before the warm-up, before the pre-match, during half-time and during additional 3-min cooling breaks at the 25th minute of each half. Initially, 20 players performed two crossover matches in 25 °C wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT) receiving cooling (CB25) and drinking (DB25). A second group of 20 players played a regular match in 25 °C WBGT with no breaks (NB25) and then a match in 33 °C WBGT during which they received either cooling (CB33) or drinking breaks (DB33). Results: In CB25, players felt cooler (p < 0.001) and less fatigued (p < 0.045) than in DB25, without differences in match running (p > 0.20), HRmean (p > 0.35) or Tcore (p > 0.09). Players in CB25 sweated less (p = 0.005) and ...