Manchester City and Pep Guardiola are widely recognised as innovators within football. They have helped to advance sports science with strategies ranging from ultra-individualised nutrition and rehydration. Through the use of data analytics for load and injury management. This approach, combined with Guardiola’s tactical expertise, has helped guide the club to unprecedented success since he took over as manager in 2016, including winning six Premier League titles.
What is less well-known is the impact that Pep Guardiola and Manchester City’s approach is having on other sports. In particular, rugby is making strides to become a more data-driven and evidence-based sport. Where pure athleticism has to be supplemented with analytics and sports science to achieve marginal gains. In this post, we will take a closer look at how Manchester City and Pep Guardiola are indirectly influencing rugby’s future.
“I came out of that session embarrassed.” Eddie Jones said after watching a Pep Guardiola side train.
The clearest evidence that Pep Guardiola has had a direct impact on rugby as a sport comes from Eddie Jones. Jones is a highly decorated former coach of the England and Australia rugby union national teams. Jones has spoken publicly about the influence that Pep Guardiola has had on his coaching. That influence began when he read the book Pep Confidential: The Inside Story of Pep Guardiola’s First Season at Bayern Munich, written by Martí Perarnau.
Martí Perarnau’s book on Pep Guardiola had a profound impact on Eddie Jones.
Jones admitted the book had a strong impact on him. It also helped to shape his selection policy during his time managing England’s national team. The impact was actually so profound that he even arranged to visit Pep Guardiola in 2015. Pep Guardiola was still in charge of Bayern Munich. His team was taking the German Bundesliga by storm.
“*It changed the way I coach. I came out of that session embarrassed about how I had been coaching.” Jones admitted. “It was just really enlightening how hard they worked…they had sweat pouring off them.*”
Eddie Jones had previously faced criticism in his own coaching career for working players too hard. Yet, during his visit to Bayern Munich, he found a committed team, working at a completely different level of intensity. Even in temperatures of around -5°C. He also found common ground in terms of what teams are actually trying to achieve in both football and rugby.
“Rugby and soccer are very similar. In that you always want to move the ball into space.” Jones explained, outlining some of the other lessons he learned during the visit. “*The principles are exactly the same.*”
Interestingly, it is also well-known that Pep Guardiola’s football philosophy was partially influenced by other sports too. In particular, rugby and handball. In this sense, the cross-sport inspiration has actually come full circle. Pep Guardiola has helped to inspire professionals working in one of the sports he was once inspired by.
Rugby’s Growing Adoption of Data Analytics.
For many decades, rugby has been a highly tactical sport. There is an intense focus on preparation, set-piece planning and analysis of opposition patterns of play. It is widely recognised that Pep Guardiola and Manchester City have helped to push data analytics in sport to a new level. Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering side capitalises on the latest scientific research. City also builds strategic partnerships with technology companies. They have also begun making effective use of the latest AI systems.
While other football teams have been quick to adopt the same approach, rugby has generally been slower on the uptake. Partly because the amount of money in football exceeds the amount of money in rugby league and rugby union combined. However, in recent times, there has been a clear shift within the rugby world to a more data-driven approach. They are now relying on complex analytics to understand player performance, passages of play and opposition tactics.
Rugby is adopting football’s approach to analytics.
Traditionally, rugby, much like football has relied on experts who understood the game. They would use that understanding to analyse how a game panned out. It also helped understand what needed to change for next time. This remains a key component of both sports. But there has been a fundamental shift to relying on actual evidence and raw data.
Rugby teams, much like Manchester City under Pep Guardiola, now make use of sophisticated models to anticipate the probability of winning a game. These models may even be cross-referenced with rugby betting odds and real-life outcomes over time, in order to explore the possibility that there may be gaps in existing modelling.
AI-powered analytics can also be used to better understand the performance of a team in a rugby game, regardless of the result. This works similarly to performance metrics like xG (expected goals) in football, where the quality of scoring opportunities is identified. This kind of analysis helps both rugby and football teams to understand the types of patterns in play that are likely to lead to goals, tries and conversions, while discarding anomalies.
Analysing Fitness, Wellbeing and Injury Risk
Manchester City is globally viewed as being at the very forefront of tracking the well-being of footballers. This includes everything from monitoring the workload of players and understanding their risk of injury. Through to creating specific rehydration plans for each player, based on their unique sweat profile, including sweat rates and sodium concentrations. It is another crucial area where the team’s sports scientists have broken new ground.
Given the club’s immense success under Pep Guardiola and even before his arrival, it comes as little surprise that this approach is now commonplace throughout football and is creeping into other sports.
For rugby, in particular, teams like the England national team and the All Blacks are now known for their use of wearable technology to track biometric information. GPS tracking and inertial measurement units (IMUs) are more widely deployed. This helps teams to understand everything from the amount of distance a player has covered in a match or training session. It also helps monitor the frequency of collisions with other players and the level of intensity behind those collisions.
Player load management is a key component in rugby.
Load monitoring is a particular point of interest in rugby. They tend to focus on the level of physical exertion and physiological stress a player experiences in training and in matches. This can be crucial for team selection and organising training sessions. The data from wearable technology can help coaches to understand which players need a rest, which players should be working harder in training and which players are at an increased risk of injury.
There is a huge amount of money wrapped up in modern rugby, from financial rewards connected to winning major competitions, to sponsorship deals and money put on outcomes through Sportsbet and other platforms.
With this being the case, every decision a rugby team and coach makes can have huge repercussions. Teams are increasingly willing to invest in technology that can help them to make good long-term decisions for the benefit of the team and in the interests of player wellbeing. Again, much of this can be traced back to the strategies implemented by teams managed by Pep Guardiola over the years, including Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City.
Manchester City’s Impact on Women’s Rugby
One of the most exciting developments of the last decade or so has been the increased attention women’s rugby has received. This not only includes increased television coverage and rising live attendances. But it has also meant a greater amount of sports science research investment and improvements to performance analytics – all of which are helping to move women’s rugby away from being a niche interest and closer to the mainstream.
Again, it can be argued that Manchester City, as a club, has played a role in pushing development forward. In this case, it shows how the club is contributing to improvements in sports science even beyond Pep Guardiola’s own work.
Manchester City’s women’s team have helped study women’s sport.
In 2021, for example, Manchester City Women took part in pioneering research with the English Institute of Sport. They trialled techniques like saliva testing to better understand changes in hormone levels. This research has helped the team to tailor nutrition, training and rest periods to individual women’s menstrual cycles. It represents another example of Manchester City’s approach to wellbeing and marginal gains and the findings are making their way into rugby.
Both Manchester City and the Sale Sharks rugby union club have worked closely with the Manchester Metropolitan University Institute of Sport, helping to study topics like anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries in female athletes. It is hoped that the findings of this kind of research can assist with advances in footwear technology, resulting in both football and rugby boots that better accommodate women’s frames and weight distribution.
Manchester City’s women’s team have contributed to the wider ecosystem of women’s sports science in and around the city. It is hoped this can have far-reaching benefits for understanding in areas like menstrual health and musculoskeletal development, which could prevent injuries and create serious gains across all women’s sports.
Final Thoughts
The impact that Pep Guardiola and his team of experts have had on football is beyond any doubt. As a consequence, Manchester City is now recognised around the world as a pioneer in sports science. They have also helped to inspire teams from every top league. What is less immediately obvious, however, is the impact that the manager and the club have had on other sports. Including rugby union and rugby league. Yet, this impact has actually been profound.
Guardiola has helped to inspire individual coaches, like Eddie Jones. Not only through tactics but also through his approach to pushing athletes in training. The club, meanwhile, has served as a clear and obvious role model during rugby’s shift towards a more data-driven and evidence-based approach to training, tactics and performance reviews.
Furthermore, Manchester City’s Women’s team have established itself as pioneers in female sports science too. The club’s work alongside sports institutes and universities could help to prevent injuries and help to manage menstrual health.