Archive September 1, 2025

There is little that illustrates the point better than road cycling when it comes to the importance of the team behind the team in top-level sport.

A short, steep hill in rural northern France is flanked by hundreds of people awaiting the marauding Tour de France peloton, all standing in among pretty flowers from the nearby meadow.

Dotted within fans holding beers and babies are Ineos Grenadiers’ ‘soigneurs’ – the crucial team support personnel.

They are carrying bags, criss-crossed to either side, full of bottles, with more in their hands as they balance precariously holding either a water or electrolyte drink out for the riders, with energy gels strapped to the side of each with an elastic band like a cheap fairground prize.

To the riders it is salvation as they battle through the oppressive heat, which has returned to the northern Hauts-de-France region after an epic morning downpour, on their way to a blistering uphill coastal finish in Boulogne-sur-Mer.

For the staff, there is more than sustenance to contend with, as they deliver the goods within a peloton which passes in seconds, team cars’ horns blaring from the chasing sporting directors as they miss prams and elbows by inches.

Soigneurs do a lot, including changing every bed sheet and pillow in every hotel to the riders’ preferred type.

But back at the hotel on the outskirts of the beautiful French city of Valenciennes, a range of staff and vehicles are pitched up in the car park, with chefs, mechanics and more ready to service every need.

It is also where you will find the team’s leadership – the only difference being there will be a laptop or multiple smartphones in their hands instead of a spanner or spatula.

So what makes a good leader? Winning. It is as simple as that.

“We have a team of sport directors and they typically run and navigate each of the races,” says Ineos performance director Scott Drawer.

“We have a science, medicine, technology engineering team, and also as part of the performance teams are our riders. So I oversee all of that.

“The conversations you have always start from the end, if that makes sense. Performance always starts at the end. And how does that play itself out in the way we train and prepare? So there’s a framework and structure by which you need to understand the performance.”

Team CEO John Allert is also on the ground in France – overseeing a period in which Ineos have not won a three-week Grand Tour in four years. Yet expectations for the team’s return to the top of the sport are high, after winning seven Tours de France in 10 years between 2010 and 2019, many as Team Sky.

“Like all elite sports, it’s a pyramid and everybody is trying to get to the top. And that creates pressure,” Allert says.

There are people and there is leadership, but numbers are becoming ever more influential in assessing performances and deciding who truly is the best of the best.

Speed, distances, heart rate, VO2 max aerobic capacity tests, biomechanics, injury risk, sleep, mood, stress, positions, heat maps, formations – it is too much for most of us to contemplate.

“Football is the hardest sport. You know, fundamentally, it’s hard to analyse because there are not many goals,” says Ian Graham, founder and CEO of analytics company Ludonautics.

“I was director of research at Liverpool Football Club for 11 years. In the Premier League, certainly every move is analysed.

“For every game, you get this data, which is this list of what happened, where and who did it. Most leagues now have something called tracking data, where you see 25 frames per second, the positions of all of the players. That tells you something about the off-ball impacts of players.”

It does not come cheap, though. Graham says it will cost anything from £1.5m to £3.5m for clubs such as Liverpool, Arsenal, Brighton and Brentford, who are known to be invested in the numbers.

Then again, in football at least, that is a steal if you are paying £100m for a player.

Data will tell anybody with knowledge of how to use it an awful lot, but can athletes understand it themselves?

Certainly – just ask English golfer Lottie Woad, who recently won the Scottish Open aged 21, a week after turning professional in a sport which demands accuracy.

“I love data, so that’s kind of how my brain works,” Woad says.

“I record stats from each round and put them in a system called Upgame – it’ll tell you everything about your round, strokes gained and stuff like that.

“And then in my practice using launch monitors, showing you all the stuff you need for your technique as well as looking at ball flight, spin rates, stuff like that. It’s helped a lot.”

Incremental improvement is the name of the game, but there’s a more sophisticated phenomenon on the horizon which could change elite sport forever and needs a scientist, not a sports star, to explain.

“Artificial intelligence is a form of computer science. So it uses systems that can perform tasks which mirror human intelligence, such as the likes of problem-solving, decision-making and learning,” says the Open University’s Mark Antrobus.

We need humans in elite sport, otherwise it is time to watch the Robot Olympics and forget everything else.

But just how much athlete autonomy is left in the modern era? There is no purer place than the athletics track to get a feel for that.

“The data doesn’t lie,” says Darren Campbell, gold medallist for Great Britain at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games in the 4x100m relay. “But I would say attitude, discipline and relay skills are important ingredients for success.

“Raw speed with no hand skills – we’re not going to get the baton round. You know you can’t just have raw speed.”

Fellow Briton Laviai Nielsen won Olympic bronze at Paris 2024 in the women’s 4x400m relay.

“The training camps are so important – we analyse everything and anything that could happen,” she says.

“We do rehearse a lot of what happens if you get shoved, what happens if you grab the baton and turn around and someone’s right in front of you.”

Back in France, as the morning summer sun warms the hotel swimming pool and its assortment of gently drifting inflatables, Ineos’ 2018 Tour de France winner and team patron Geraint Thomas thinks about his own autonomy on the bike before he retires at the end of this year.

“The racing has moved on, and you just kind of have to adapt. [The riders] definitely have an input,” says the Welshman.

“I like the thought of cycling being an art more than a science. It still needs the human element for sure. Just keep those paintbrushes by your side, mate. That’s what I say.”

Sunderland are interested in signing Ajax striker Brian Brobbey and have agreed to pay RB Leipzig’s Lutsharel Geertruida an initial loan.

After Chelsea chose to recalled loanee Marc Guiu as Liam Delap’s replacement due to a hamstring injury, the newly promoted Premier League side wants to sign a forward.

Brobbey, 23, might make a rumored £21.6 million move to the Stadium of Light.

The striker has eight international caps with the Netherlands and has 56 goals and 24 assists for Ajax overall.

Meanwhile, Sunderland have agreed to pay his Dutch compatriot Geertruida an initial loan with an option to purchase, with the 25-year-old having a medical on Monday.

Geertruida, who primarily plays right-back, made 35 appearances for Leipzig last year before being allowed to leave the German club.

In manager Regis Le Bris’ squad, he is anticipated to be Sunderland’s 13th signing of the summer, adding to existing defenders like Nordi Mukiele, Omar Alderete, Reinildo Mandava, and Arthur Masuaku.

Sunderland have already spent £141.5 million in the transfer window, which is a British record for a promoted club, compared to Nottingham Forest’s £142 million in the summer of 2022.

For the time being, Cobdown Park, home to the newly promoted Women’s Super League team’s training facility, is a construction site.

There are temporary cabins atop the club offices, and there are a lot of dirt stands where a new pitch will be laid with diggers seated behind one goal.

Lionesses are the first fully independent team in the history of the competition to not be associated with a men’s club or another organization. They were first promoted to the WSL this year for the first time.

However, Kosovare Asllani, their captain, is not anxious to see how things will turn out in the top flight.

The Sweden international tells BBC Sport, “Personally, I would not be happy for us to be a mid-table team at the end of the season.” “The top four would be a good season,” they say.

This reflects Cobdown Park’s defining quality, which is ambition.

Lionesses made the summer move to make their 28-acre Ditton base a top destination for both girls and women’s football.

When American businesswoman Michele Kang took over their position in December of that year, their attempts to ascend to the top echelons of the game began. Asllani, 36, who has more than 200 caps for Sweden and won the WSL with Manchester City in 2016, was signed last summer by them.

Asllani will help the Lionesses begin their first WSL campaign, which will take them away from Champions League holders Arsenal at Emirates Stadium on September 6 after winning the second-tier title last year with a 2-2 draw at second-place Birmingham City.

The forward still runs the highest level; she captained Sweden at Euro 2025 and won the game-winning goal against England in the quarter-final.

When asked if a mid-table finish would represent a successful season, she replies, “It would be acceptable and maybe realistic.” “We are entering the world’s best women’s league,” she said.

You always want to reach the highest possible level, though, from a personal standpoint. Saying I’m happy with mid-table would violate all of my principles.

It’s a huge challenge to enter the WSL’s top end. Only four organizations, including Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United, and Manchester City, have ever finished in the top three since 2015.

Survival is the aim for the most well-known clubs. The teams that have won the Women’s Championship in the past two seasons, Bristol City in 2023-24, and Crystal Palace in last year, have both come back straight after that.

Lionesses, however, have a different feeling.

They are undoubtedly investing the funds to prevent a relegation fight. Twelve players have signed this summer, in addition to the new training facilities.

These include seasoned internationals like England’s Nikita Parris and Dutch midfielder Danielle van de Donk, as well as Elena Linari, the Italian centre-back named in the Euro 2025 team.

Asllani laughs back, “I met a new player every day and I went back for two weeks after the Euros.” However, I’ve learned the names of everyone.

Asllani’s first WSL game since leaving Manchester City in August 2017 will be her debut.

England has won two European championships since that time, and the women’s game’s face has almost completely changed.

Because I’m Swedish and they beat us in the semi-finals, England winning the Euros in 2022 left a lasting impression in this nation. Asllani claims that it was a breakthrough.

If another country had won, you wouldn’t notice a lot of a difference in the structure of women’s football, I’ve said to many players.

However, “You see it in England, it piques your interest, it causes a lasting impression, and the players are treated as they deserve, just like the men piqued your interest.”

“I adore Arsenal playing at the Emirates, which is amazing for English women’s football. It will be a historic day to play our first WSL game there.

Significant investment pressure comes with it. And despite Asllani’s ambitious words, it would be remarkable if their debut campaign challenged the established WSL order.

They are also creating that challenge as they construct a new training facility.

Asllani describes the new team as “building from scratch.” “We are building the house, and the roof is about to be constructed.