If you are a serious sportsman/woman shift work can be great. You can train during the day and give yourself weeknights off while everyone else is slogging around a cold, floodlit pitch or in a crowded gym. You will also find that you can better prepare yourself for competition when the roster gives you your days off preceding an event.
You will probably need to adapt the squad training programme to your shifts. Most training programmes work on a seven day week, incorporating the fact that athletes will be more tired on Thursday and Friday than Monday and Tuesday. This can work for and against you as you will often be fresh when the others aren't or tired when the rest of the squad is raring to go.
The downsides are the difficulty to establish yourself in a team when you cannot be certain of making training with everyone else, the discipline needed to train effectively on your own rather than being pushed by your team mates and having to juggle your roster to make the fixtures you want, usually requiring the goodwill of a third party.
It can be done though, and a healthy interest outside the job can be invaluable in helping you through the stress of training (and beyond!).