admin Behind the scenes at Manchester City were backroom staff making plans and taking decisions that helped deliver the Treble
Most people watching the Champions League final saw another heartache for Kevin De Bruyne, cruelly forced off in the biggest game in club football for the second time in three years.
De Bruyne was obviously gutted, but there was a happiness from him and many at Manchester City that he had actually made it out on the pitch. As an emotional Pep Guardiola told De Bruyne on the pitch afterwards that ‘we did it’, it spoke to the last two months as well as the seven years they had spent together.
It was in the second leg of the quarter-final against Bayern Munich that De Bruyne’s hamstring went. He was substituted in the final few minutes of the 1-1 draw in mid-April and the easiest treatment for him would have been six weeks on the sidelines.
Instead, the performance team – more than 30 staff in all – with the full support of the player and Guardiola, devised a plan that included daily ultrasounds, strength markers, individual training sessions and tryouts to try to support the player despite his weaknesses in the treble injury . Before arriving in Istanbul, De Bruyne beat Arsenal in La Liga, scored one goal at the Bernabeu and scored both goals in the FA Cup final; The only irony is that the week leading up to the Champions League final was the best he’d had in two months since his injury.
De Bruyne might not have been able to finish the task, but reaching that point was a triumph for both the player and everyone who helped him get there. As well as the fact that everyone was available for the last two games of the historic campaign.
City are well aware that luck played a part in the season’s relatively few injuries – it takes a few to score a hat-trick – but De Bruyne’s treatment shows just how much wit and joke have also disappeared. in team management throughout the season. a season that was massively interrupted by the World Cup in the middle of the national game.There’s a reason Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak hailed the medical team as “phenomenal and unexpected heroes” and spoke about City’s unprecedented success over the past 12 months.
Last summer, the efficiency team had an internal discussion to find out if City is indeed starting slowly. They usually reach their best form in campaigns after the start of the year. So how can they improve early on?
No obvious flaws have been identified and the decisions to give players plenty of summer rest – which often means Guardiola does not start the season with a full squad – are deliberate in order to prepare players for a long season. By not overloading them in the early months, the aim is to prevent City from losing momentum towards the end of the season.
The obvious elephant in the room this season, though, was the winter World Cup in Qatar. With City adopting the same attitude to rest in December, it was accepted well before it that the squad would effectively have two seasons in one with the possibility of two peaks and two slow starts: double the opportunity but double the risk.
Controlling as many of the unknowns as possible was key to the plan, with data shared in the build-up with each national team on their players to receive the same reports while they were in Qatar. There was a particular focus on England given there were five City players in Gareth Southgate’s squad, with the head of physical performance and head physio brought into the club’s training ground the week before they headed off to the tournament so City staff could glean as much insight as possible.
On the return of the players, as important to control was accepting that everyone would be coming back in a slightly different state in terms of their physical and mental health. Some would be determined to get back to put disappointment behind them, while for World Cup winner Julian Alvarez the concern was that the euphoria with Argentina could prove hard to come down from.
There were also potential issues with those who didn’t travel; a break after the punishing Champions League group stages helped Riyad Mahrez and Erling Haaland in a way, although for Haaland in particular it was a constant battle to keep him fit and in rhythm. City took to sending one of their physios away with him to the Norway team whenever he was on international duty, and the player himself did everything he could to recover and recuperate at home when he wasn’t training.
Trusting the players has been a vital part of the success. Haaland may like a kebab from time to time just as Jack Grealish has been known to enjoy the odd beer, but everyone in the squad is trusted to eat and drink what they want knowing that Guardiola gets medical reports on his desk daily from the tests they are required to do and will not be shy to call them out privately or publicly if they fall short of the conditions he requires them to be in.
That said, the players are also given every chance of maximising their recoveries with the facilities and expertise available to them at City. Most of the squad have their own personal chefs at home to ensure they are eating the right things away from the training ground, and at the training ground and the stadium the nutrition team have worked to create healthier version of treat foods for all to enjoy.
There have also been innovations in the physio department, with the club becoming the first team in Europe to use sound chairs that vibrate gently for players to recover physically and mentally from the daily grind. Ice baths at different temperatures and several types of beds also provide more variety than ever as physio moves towards nutrition in accepting that individual ‘menu-based’ plans are needed rather than the same approach for all players.
With recovery often more important than training as City played every three days for virtually every week of the season, physio became more mobile than ever before. Players were treated on trains, planes, and anywhere else possible as no minute around the matchday schedule was wasted.
For all the need to treat players as individuals, the biggest problem after the World Cup was that they played like a bunch of them rather than a team. Even with staff accepting that it would need time to recalibrate after so much time away from the meticulous training style of Guardiola, the manager fumed about performances and results as the team nearly dropped out of the title race completely.
Whatever the doubts inside the Etihad over their ability to put together the sort of winning run that had taken them to success in previous seasons, the data proved reassuring. By deliberately playing a longer game in not going too hard in intensity or frequency of training after the World Cup, City were confident that they would have the legs to carry them to the end of the season if they found their form up against other clubs who may have already peaked.
So it proved. The squad came together in spectacular fashion to forge a 25-match unbeaten run in all competitions including 20 wins – two of which came against Arsenal in the league – that took them to within two games of the Treble, blowing the Gunners away in the final stretch of the season with their relentless consistency and quality.
Guardiola’s intuitive ability to digest the information made available to him and recognize when a player needs a start or a break was key in seeing the side through this period without sacrificing any results and the manager has his side also provided psychological support. From a public statement ahead of the Champions League final where he downplayed a win or loss to defuse tensions between the players, to urging Ilkay Gundogan to deliver a message to Kyle Walker ahead of the game in Istanbul after not being in the starting XI, Guardiola knew how to make the most of it when it came down to it, there weren’t any players left.
From Leicester in July to Istanbul in June, City played 61 games and spent most of them with just one player injured. Huge credit goes to the coaching staff and squad for achieving that treble that we may never see again, but at the heart of their success were those who worked behind the scenes and gave the players everything they needed to play their best .
With the possibility of more games next season due to the addition of the Super Cup and Club World Cup to the calendar, work is already underway to find ways to improve City’s performance.You can start with the de Bruyne tendon.
