Bruno Guimaraes has been a revelation at Newcastle United adding much needed quality since the day he arrived but that didn’t happen by accident.
The modern game is a far cry from what it used to be, small boys in the park, jumpers for goalposts isn’t it? Marvellous.
These days the game is much faster, more intricate and involved and players are finely tuned athletes who use every modern method available to them to become the best and The Athletic has looked at what Bruno Guimaraes does to keep him a the top of his game.
Bruno has his own team of video analysts to improve his game
The Newcastle talisman has teamed up with a company called Performa Sports who are a team of video analysts who help footballer’s improve their game and it’s worked for Guimaraes who said: “If I have a little more information than my opponent — even 10 per cent more — I have an advantage over him. That’s why I have my analysis guys.”
It has clearly worked for Bruno too, the Brazilian came up playing Futsal like most South American players and that led to Guimaraes carrying over some bad habits into the professional game which his analysts were able to spot and correct during his time at Lyon.
The team highlighted an issue in Bruno’s game and helped him correct it meaning he became much more competitive in the European game. Analyst, Eduardo Barthem explains what Performa Sports do and what they noticed with Bruno: “We identify patterns and benchmarks. They can be more complex or less complex. Depending on the player, it’s either a case of building on what they already have, or starting something from scratch and then going deeper.”
“We had one strong perception with Bruno: that he had a lot of vices that came from futsal,” says Barthem. “He had played it for a long time — longer than most kids in Brazil — and you could tell.
“The main one was his first touch: every time he received the ball, he’d put his foot on it. Only then would he start to open up his body. You have to control the ball in a way that gives you time, allows you to make the most of the space that is there. We showed him a few clips that demonstrated this really clearly.”
Without his team Bruno may not have ended up at Newcastle
The analysts also noticed that Bruno would too often take too many touches before playing a pass and delay too much in possession while playing for Lyon and they helped him work on that aspect of his game. Without this he may not have got his move to Newcastle given how much faster the game is played in the Premier League.
While Bruno still likes to roll his studs over the top of the ball it’s done in a way that keeps the play moving rather than stopping the play to survey the scene.
With all the data available to footballers these days it’s amazing that not everyone is taking advantage of the type of service Performa provide to Bruno, but long may it continue if it serves as a means to make Newcastle improve over the opposition.
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