Erling Haaland has assisted Manchester City players in their efforts to speed up their recuperation times.
After a Manchester City game, Erling Haaland and Jack Grealish wear glasses that block blue light.
The Etihad may not yet serve heart and liver, but Erling Haaland’s obsession with Manchester City now extends to his eyeglasses.
The 23-year-old Norwegian is already one of the most recognizable brands in football in addition to being one of the best players in the world. That can be seen in the increases in ticket and shirt sales at the Etihad since his arrival last year, as well as the clamor wherever he goes (tickets for the team’s training session in South Korea last week were advertised at around £20, and 23,000 people showed up). He also recently modeled at an upscale Dolce and Gabbana event.
Haaland can captivate everyone, regardless of whether they are fans of the game or not; nevertheless, this also holds true for people who see him frequently. Jack Grealish is one of the City players who has grown attached to the spectacles that their striker wears at night to aid in his recuperation. He bought them for the entire team to enjoy and use.
The tale of the spectacles begins in 2018, when a 17-year-old Haaland entered his brand-new club Molde and ran with a Philadelphian adolescent who had just launched his own company. The startup Ra Optics may not have been the first to provide eyewear that shields against dangerous blue light in the air, but founder and CEO Matt Maruca do like to think that he was the first one to make them ‘cool’.
Maruca, who had health issues as a child, dedicated his high school years to learning everything he could about blue light, which may disturb the body’s circadian rhythm but is also present in sunlight and helps set it. The teen discovered that preventing the damaging blue light improved his sleep and health, but he was also limited to “these really clunky safety goggles from Amazon – they looked like Terminator glasses,” which were not ideal for any high school student who wanted to socialize in the evening.
Even if colored lenses are necessary for reducing blue light, Maruca founded Ra Optics a few weeks after graduation to target anyone else with a passion for wellness. Soon, customers from the NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA, and a Norwegian soccer player who would go on to become one of the world’s most known faces joined the clientele.
Maruca explained to the Manchester Evening News that she “just so happened to meet Erling in Norway six years ago.” “He was 17 at the time, which makes it Molde five years ago.
“I was in Molde the year before he was brought in, and I just so happened to be there when he was moving in. We got along, we had a few conversations, and we spent some time together. The epidemic then occurred, and he rode his rocket ship to fame.
“I reflect on the traits I saw in this young kid back then that I can now see displayed in his work. How focused he was was one of the most astonishing things. He was hunched over and his eyes were as sharp as lightning on the target.
“It seems like an absurd coincidence, but he has been using our products and abiding by the standards that our organization has established. We discuss both wearing the glasses and being outside in the early morning sunlight to help the body’s rhythm. The amazing thing is that what we discussed years ago is now mainstream.
The most important point to make is that sleep is crucial for these athletes’ recovery, something that Erling and the coaching team are aware of. Everyone is aware that if they can’t sleep for two or three days, they can’t do anything, so consider the impact good or terrible sleep may have on your life.
“I saw a video on Instagram of [Leo] Messi scanning the field so many times per second, it’s unbelievable! I had no idea how much mental effort, how much cognitive function was needed, or how sleep affects both our mental and physical abilities. Simply by being exposed to artificial light at night, we disrupt this fundamental cycle, causing us to make extra melatonin and have trouble falling asleep.
Grealish with a pair of glasses on the 2023 tour
Haaland acknowledges that wearing the special spectacles at night to aid in his body’s natural rhythm’s production of melatonin for better sleep has enhanced his football by a few percentage points and has maintained contact with Maruca ever since their unexpected encounter. As Haaland has become more well-known among athletes, more footballers are showing an interest in adopting some of his training techniques. Ra Optics has received inquiries from elite professionals and clubs regarding the glasses after City’s No. 9 posted about them on social media. Everyone is always looking for new methods to enhance performance.
That includes at the Etihad, where Haaland was able to procure the spectacles for the entire City team to aid their rest and recovery in between games thanks to the intrigue from his teammates. Along with enhancing sleep on a daily basis, they have helped the players during the preseason trip of Japan and South Korea by reducing jet lag, and Grealish is a big supporter.
When traveling with jet lag, Maruca observed, “our rhythm gets thrown off because the sun rises in Japan at a completely different time than it does in Manchester.” To prevent their hormones from releasing melatonin in the middle of the day when they must be on the playing field, their body’s rhythm must be adjusted.
Thankfully, this cycle is not fixed, but in order to adjust, we need a signal of light. According to scientists, if someone is exposed to artificial light at night instead of natural darkness, it will result in a phase delay or shift.
“Pretend the sun sets at 7 o’clock. If you switch on the lights as it begins to get dark around that time, if you have those lights on until 9 pm there is a two-hour phase delay in the Circadian rhythm because it tricks the brain.
While most places you arrive at and they turn on the lights on the plane and they have bright lights at the airport and that makes it harder to finally get to sleep when you arrive, when someone travels on the jet they have control over when their brain recognizes that it’s nighttime and when it can start making melatonin by using the glasses.
“With the glasses, you can fall asleep really quickly after all that traveling and then wake up earlier, feel fresher, and adjust to your new timezone much faster than someone who has been impacted by all this disruptive light,” says the wearer of the device.
Haaland will continue to utilize goals as his primary form of currency in football as he seeks to outperform the staggering 52 he scored in his first season playing in England. Pep Guardiola may also be able to thank his strikers for introducing them to quicker recovery thanks to a better night’s sleep as the glasses gain popularity in the team.