Have you ever got up at 5AM and felt the need to tell everyone about it? No? Us neither, but that is the High Performance world that some claim to enjoy living in.
The term, as popularised by Jake Humphrey and his podcast, has come to be a meme of the champagne-sipping elite that think they are all better than this.
The ego is often a necessary requirement to work at the top level of football, but who is the most High Performance manager in the Premier League? Here’s our ranking of all 20 bosses in the league.
20. Daniel Farke
When Pep Guardiola said his team would be sipping cocktails after a win, Daniel Farke responded that his team would be drinking “proper pints.”
Enough said.
19. Sergej Jakirovic
Let’s be honest, Jakirovic is far too hard to be a High Performance man.
He was born in Yugoslavia, in what is now Bosnia, during the Balkan Wars and dealt with fighter jets and bombings during his teenage years.
That probably gave him a grander perspective on life that enjoying time with your family is just as valuable as your Whoop sleep score.
He also weirdly loves Only Fools and Horses.
18. David Moyes
The Scottish don’t seem to indulge in the High Performance bulls**t as much as those south of the border, so we reckon Moyes would dismiss it all as “nonsense.”
He’s in his 60s, which is frankly too old to be worrying about how many grams of protein you get a day and while he is certainly no dinosaur, he is not very High Performance.
17. Oliver Glasner
Sorry but anyone who has admitted to going on an all-night bender in Greece during his youth is not High Performance.
Glasner said he did as much when he told the BBC he had been partying from “sunrise to sunrise” for two weeks as a freshly graduated 18-year-old.
He also plays golf and tennis with his childhood friends which seems far too normal.
16. Michael Carrick
Carrick would be High Performance, but he had to check with Fergie first who said it sounded stupid.
15. Frank Lampard
Lampard is definitely High Performance haha but no seriously, he’s not.
The Coventry boss seems a bit too normal to be getting up at 5AM. He himself has said he is more relaxed as a manager than he was before and that has worked taking the Sky Blues up to the Premier League.
He also has an interest in crime podcasts which is probably what he is doing while others are batch cooking their next 47 meals.
14. Xabi Alonso
Chelsea’s removal of Liam Rosenior in favour of Xabi Alonso not only gave them a better manager but also saw them fall well down this table.
Alonso is far too cool to be posting about his Monday morning matcha-infused soy latte that he had in the cafe opposite his gym at 5:15AM.
He’s big into TV shows and has interests in art, literature and cinema, which are hobbies you can have when you’re not all about that grindset.
13. Alvaro Arbeloa
Arbeloa is like Alonso, but way less cool and he got this job through his name rather than credentials which is not very High Performance of him.
12. Regis Le Bris
One of the key requirements of being High Performance is telling absolutely everyone you know that you are High Performance, which is why Le Bris is this low down.
11. Pierre Sage
To be fair to Sage, he’s got every right to preach his process.
The 47-year-old has worked his way up from amateur football to the Premier League and you probably don’t do that if you’re willing to take a weekend off every now and again.
Unfortunately, he does not have much of an ego, which makes him fall down this table. He even once said “For me, the pressure is giving the players the best session I can give every day.” Sickening.
10. Andoni Iraola
Iraola just seems far too unassuming to fit the High Performance mould. He doesn’t seem like someone who would brag about his achievements and could probably win the Champions League and not even bring it up the next day at breakfast.
He cycles, which is getting a bit too High Performance, but has at least the ability to disconnect from football when he’s not working.
9. Marco Rose
Anyone who has come through the Red Bull pipeline automatically feels High Performance.
Rose plays golf, which is as necessary to being High Performance as tweeting about every occurrence in your day is, but maybe that does show he can switch off from work.
8. Unai Emery
Let’s be honest, we can all absolutely see Unai Emery in the office at 5AM frantically sweating over tactics.
Emery is very High Performance with a little bit of crazy thrown in there. His odd repetition of Marco Bizot in an interview as well as his unsettlingly relaxed hair away from the touchline do though mean he is not one of the top contenders.
7. Roberto De Zerbi
Someone who cannot stop thinking about football to even come up with a hairstyle not from 2003 is clearly obsessed with performance.
“For me, football has never been just fun,” is the kind of quote that those who like the grind would celebrate rather than it being a somewhat sad reflection.
And he has come out with corkers like “The perfection. That doesn’t exist, but we have to look for it.”
6. Keith Andrews
Andrews is a big advocate of the weirder training techniques out there.
He blasts techno music during training to pump up his players. He admitted he can’t walk his dog without thinking about team selections. He regularly says he’s “all in” on the job.
It’s worked for him, to be fair.
5. Mikel Arteta
Is it possible to be a bit too High Performance to actually be High Performance?
Some of Arteta’s antics feel a step too far even for Humphrey, but the Arsenal boss is definitely of that slightly deranged win-at-all-costs mindset.
4. Gary O’Neil
Being the successor to Liam Rosenior at Strasbourg should be more than enough credentials to be high on this list.
To be fair to the current Ipswich manager, he is not the rent-a-quote machine as his Strasbourg successor was. But that side of him does come out when he speaks.
He’s given a tactical masterclass to Coaches’ Voice on how his Wolves side beat Chelsea and while this was impressive, being able to big up your own achievements is a key part of the High Performance mindset.
3. Enzo Maresca
One of the secrets to being High Performance is being unable to think about anything other than your career and Maresca himself has admitted he is guilty of that.
He said “Unfortunately, I never stop thinking about football, and I have four kids”, which is probably not what you want to hear from your dad.
He also likes to bring up his dad’s life as a fisherman and painting yourself as having endured a struggle is key to the grindset.
2. Matthias Jaissle
Padel? Check.
Skiing? Check?
Reads books by other ‘leaders’? Check.
Matthias Jaissle ticks a lot of the High Performance stereotypes. Firstly, he looks suave with his hair never out of place. He is surprisingly ripped and has said things like “My motto for life is I want to be the best version of myself.”
He probably spends all night plotting how he can utilise Dan Burn.
1. Fabian Hurzeler
Frankly, we are amazed he has not already been on the podcast.
There’s a long list of very High Performance-esque quotes from Hurzeler such as “I think a coach has to be a good psychologist” and “With nice, you win nothing.”
He does seem somewhat likeable if a little awkward and the only thing not High Performance about him this season is his hair transplant.
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