Orlando Laitano has spent more than a decade studying what happens inside a soccer player's body when the mercury rises—and his findings are reshaping how one of the world's most storied teams prepares for extreme heat. The University of Florida researcher, an assistant professor in the College of Health and Human Performance's Department of Applied Physiology and Kinesiology, has discovered something simple but profound: not all sweat is created equal, and the personalized hydration strategies he develops could be the difference between peak performance and heat illness when Brazil's national team takes the field at the 2026 FIFA World Cup across North America this summer.
For years, coaching teams and athletes operated under a straightforward assumption—sweat meant you were working hard, and everyone needed the same sports drink to stay hydrated. Laitano's research upended that logic. "Every athlete loses a different combination of fluids and electrolytes during competition," he explains, and those differences directly affect muscle performance, recovery and susceptibility to heat-related illness. Instead of handing every player an identical bottle, Laitano evaluates each athlete individually using sweat-collection patches and personalized monitoring systems to measure exactly how much fluid, sodium and chloride they lose during training and matches. The result is a customized hydration formula for each player—a strategy so precise that some of the technology even tracks, sip by sip, whether athletes are drinking according to plan.
This work is the fruit of a collaboration stretching back more than a decade, involving the Gatorade Sports Science Institute where Laitano serves as a consultant, his own research laboratory, and the Brazilian national soccer team. Early testing began in 2013 alongside Brazil's preparation for the 2014 World Cup. Most recently, Laitano conducted comprehensive assessments during a Brazilian national team training camp in Orlando, measuring the physiological demands specific to each position on the field. "It's very specific," he said. "Players' sweat compositions vary, and they play different positions with different physical demands—it's individualized."
But Laitano's mission extends far beyond trophy cases. His federally funded research at the University of Florida focuses on exertional heat illness—a serious threat that strikes not only elite athletes but also laborers and military personnel exposed to intense heat. The same principles that help a midfielder stay sharp in Miami can save a soldier's life during training in the desert. "When soldiers go to train and combat in the heat, they collapse because it's too hot," Laitano said. "This is what we study in our lab," supported by the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health.
The 2026 World Cup presents a particular challenge: athletes accustomed to cooler European climates will suddenly compete in summer heat across stadiums from the United States to Mexico City. Travel, recovery demands and repeated exposure to high temperatures create cumulative stress on the body. The same player competing in different environments will need different hydration strategies. As Laitano notes, "Whoever has the best ability to cope with heat will have an advantage." Already, some of the technologies developed for elite athletes—including consumer hydration patches that analyze sweat composition through a smartphone app—are reaching the general public, bringing the science of personalized hydration out of the lab and into everyday life.