by Pep Guardiola leaves his mark on each and every one of the players he coaches. Also in Gaël Clichy. The French full-back had Santpedor as a coach at Manchester City and still remembers it as an incredible experience. A lot of learning, but above all a lot of demand to take care of even the smallest detail.
In statements to ‘The Coaches Voice’, the Frenchman indicated that “I am grateful for what I learned under his leadership, but I would have liked it to have been more than one season. It lit a spark in my way of watching football and made me want to learn even more. Now when I watch football, I can’t distance myself from what I’ve seen and what I learned from Pep. All of that, in a word, would be: details.”
Details and maximum demand. “First, his two-kilo rule. If you were two kilos more than what he considered your maximum weight, you didn’t train. I saw players who didn’t train for two weeks.” Clichy also remembers how Pep delegated and how important his staff gave to nutrition to have optimal performance.
“They look at who came first to breakfast and what they ate. They’re not going to tell you to eat differently, but if it doesn’t work that tells them that you don’t have the right mentality to perform on their team. They look at who has performed in terms of to run, who has given up in terms of losing the ball. They look at each and every one of the sections, and they want everyone to be involved,” said the Frenchman.
In addition to Pep Guardiola, Gaël Clichy was lucky to be a coach by other great technicians such as Manuel Pellegrini or Roberto Mancini in his time at Manchester City. Before, he had Arsene Wenger at Arsenal. Not bad.
