Pep Guardiola will not follow Claudio Ranieri’s blueprint for how to motivate players towards the Premier League trophy.
Ranieri famously rewarded Leicester clean sheets last season with pizza and it clearly worked as Kasper Schmeichel came up with 15 during the Foxes’ title-winning campaign.
But Guardiola is taking a very different approach to his debut season in England as he’s apparently put the kibosh on any heavy foods for his Manchester City players.
City left back Gael Clichy admitted that Guardiola has outlined his dietary expectations to his new charges and they will not go down well with the Dominos-lovers in the squad.
“He cut out some juice and pizza and all the heavy food is not allowed,” Clichy said, in quotes appearing in the Guardian. “Some people think: ‘That’s normal, it should be like this.’ But in truth it’s not always like this and I know because I’ve been playing football for a long time. It’s really refreshing and very exciting.”
The Frenchman also revealed that there are certain players who are yet to train with the first team in pre-season as they are deemed too overweight for the liking of of the very particular Guardiola.
“On the field, outside the field, every detail counts,” Clichy said. “For example, you often hear managers say being healthy is really important. With him, if you’re weight is too high, you’re not training with the team. That is the first thing and you can hear it a lot, but for my part it’s the first time any manager has really done it. So we have a few players who are not training with the team yet.”
Given Lionel Messi’s reported pizza addiction in the 2013/14 season, we definitely can’t see him making that shock move to the Etihad now.
Messi's fondness for pizza was to blame for last season's poor form according to Barca legendhttp://t.co/cblu4V80Uh pic.twitter.com/LBZTDCZVnV
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) March 1, 2015
