Fancy seeing you here? That sentiment, no doubt accompanied by the warmest of smiles, will float in the Hertfordshire countryside as three members of Germany’s World Cup squad – Mesut Özil, Per Mertesacker and Lukas Podolski – return from their belated holidays to find an American who shared that experience of a sporting lifetime in Brazil. Shad Forsythe, a new fitness coach at Arsenal – headhunted to invigorate their training regime – was one of four specialists who were embedded with Joachim Löw’s team every step, every stretch, every session of the way at the World Cup. They were such valued members of the group that the players lined up for a collective we-are-not-worthy bow at the celebration stage in front of millions of fans at their Berlin homecoming.

The hiring of Forsythe is intriguing in that Arsène Wenger identified the need for improvement in the club’s training regimes and went about solving the problem by recruiting a man who has been working at the vanguard of elite performance.

Before joining Arsenal, Forsythe worked for EXOS, an American organisation who are influential in what the founder, Mark Verstegen, defines as “performance culture”. It is an intense approach. The pillars of their work are “mindset, nutrition, movement, recovery” and no resource is left unexplored in the search for clues to unlock a player’s maximum potential. If you buy into it, you buy in completely. It becomes akin to a lifestyle choice as much as the job from the player’s perspective.

Forsythe is not expected to turn up with a magic wand capable of eliminating Jack Wilshere’s repeated niggles, guaranteeing there is no repeat of the kind of complications that kept Aaron Ramsey out for several months last season with a thigh problem, or unlocking the mystery of the injury-plagued Abou Diaby. But what he can do is bring the experience of having a leading role in the relationship between EXOS and the German Football Federation (DFB) over a decade of regeneration that culminated in this summer’s World Cup triumph. As the winning captain, Philipp Lahm, says: “From the beginning ... EXOS has always pushed us to achieve our full potential.”

For an insight into the kind of expertise Arsenal have imported, it is useful to examine their work with the German national squad. The DFB insisted on having their gang of four performance staff with them every single moment, starting from the first day of World Cup camp until the final in the Maracanã. Not to mention considerable work building up to that time.

They worked with Löw to set up the fitness regime, with every player given an individual prescription that was constantly monitored with all the most innovative data. They had a say in travel arrangements – meticulous enough to locate a training base at Campo Bahia to minimise travel time to any venue, with all flights planned for after 7pm so players could eat first and there would be no interference with mealtimes. They made sure the training pitch was adjusted to mirror where Germany would next play. They worked with a three-star Michelin chef, who made advanced planning visits to every hotel and had a portable kitchen in each stadium to prepare nutrient-dense food. They had a say on which player lived in which villa at Campo Bahia, and worked with the players on motivation. This was one of the aspects Forsythe brought to the party. He routinely gave motivational talks, in German, and specifically encouraged the players to take an active role in this regard. The player-led team-talks became extremely important as the World Cup progressed.

Wenger hinted that the influence of his German players, who were able to report back on the methodology in which they are well versed, made an impression in Forsythe joining, in addition to the conversations between the two men directly. “He would not be here if I was not impressed,” said Wenger. “We are trying to be as good as we can everywhere. We might still bring somebody else in to be as accurate as possible and preventative as well. We can still improve in some departments to prepare better.”

The prevention aspect is particularly crucial for Wenger, given the high amount of game time key performers lost in recent seasons. Forsythe’s mentor, Verstegen, explains how much focus they put on understanding how players move to avoid problems. “If we are screening every athlete and we see something that might take someone out of games, we want to address those inefficient movement patterns up front,” he says.

“If someone’s hip is locked up it doesn’t mean they can’t play – but in time that is going to give a higher incidence of groin issues, lower-back issues. So we want to address those things and clean them up. It’s like running a virus scan on the human operating system and getting those movement patterns cleaned up. How rapidly can we make that happen? It could be a singular session all the way to weeks and months, until we get that cleaned up. And then we maintain it. Otherwise this person is going to continue to have issues.So what we need to do is say: ‘we are not just going to swap out the tyre that blew, but structurally we need to reduce the pressure that blew the tyre.’”

It is here that the science comes to the fore, and they measure all sorts of movements and establish the best drills for each player so they can fine-tune individuals within the framework of a team sport. “So instead of having the guys just go and run for their conditioning, we are using technical and tactical drills as prescriptions for the conditioning response we want, while working on the technical and tactical side. So it gets to be fun that way,” says Verstegen.

“In order to play Löw’s system, each position has specific demands they need to be tuned for. Each player has an individual responsibility to be able to show up, on and off the field, and meet the demands of their player profile. In a very German way we want to make sure every player is precisely tuned for what they need to do to have success, so that when they are plugged into the system, everyone is capable of doing what they need to do when called on.” Verstegen says that the Germans at times ran roughly 113km per match as a team compared with roughly 100km by their opponents. “That almost equates to having three-quarters of another person on the pitch,” he adds.

Some of it might be a culture shock for Arsenal, but having German players who have reaped the benefits is a big advantage. “When Per can look at another guy and say: ‘Listen, I had these types of issues, and since I started working with these systems I haven’t had them for five years’, it makes a difference. When you have those endorsements, it makes the locker room come with you much quicker. A decade ago, ohhh ...” Verstegen laughs. “But now players devour it.”

Jürgen Klinsmann was the conduit in 2004 when he became Germany’s head coach. He had come across Verstegen’s work at LA Galaxy, and when Klinsmann sent the Germany physio, Oliver Schmidtlein, around the world to consider the best way of player preparation, they came to the same conclusion of who they wanted to help with the task of rebuilding German football. They have worked in tandem ever since.

As Verstegen points out, the mission is comprehensive. “We try to break down the walls and have people understand that this isn’t a medical department or a physio department, or a fuelling and culinary department, or football operations, or analytics,” he says. “Forget about your box. Look at your department as being part of one team on the pitch moving the ball forward in this style of play. So part of what Shad will be tasked for at Arsenal, and what we were tasked for with the DFB, is to integrate.

“Shad has a lot of work to do. The player buy-in, how they set the right systems up – which may need investment – like we did with the DFB in 2004 so we could focus on each player and make sure the staff is there to support them. Every day. It’s a cultural change. It doesn’t happen overnight. But it is a very powerful move by the organisation to do that. What you saw from the DFB commitment to this renaissance was that everyone from bus driver, kit man, everyone is evaluated towards this new culture. Jürgen and the DFB made some very hard choices to completely restructure that team. Everyone was going to have to work together and help one another – we were all connected to the team. There has to be a commitment from the club to say: ‘we believe in a performance culture. We are now going to invest, in this case with Shad. There is probably a direct correlation between that decision point and in future decreasing man-games lost and increasing performance of players on the field.

“Arsenal are getting a guy who is driven by high values. Shad genuinely cares and will work extremely hard player by player, peer to peer, to help execute the vision Mr Wenger has laid out. It is going to take a lot of time and a lot of hard work. But I think it’s a great match and a great choice.”

Kieran Gibbs says the players are already excited by Forsythe’s impact. “He’s bought new ideas in which has helped so far.”

And that’s only a week into the job. In his own way, Forsythe could turn out to be Arsenal’s most important signing of the summer.

GERMANY’S GANG OF FOUR

Mark Verstegen

Verstegen pioneered the concept of integrated performance training and has brought that the system to athletes, teams, and sports organisations; the United States military; and companies, such as Intel, Walgreens, LinkedIn, and the Sheraton Hotels chain. As the founder and president of EXOS, Verstegen is in charge of more than 500 employees at the company’s performance centres.

Shad Forsythe

Has held many roles in training, including at the US Olympic Training Centre in San Diego. Forsythe joined EXOS in 2003 and has worked with the German Football Federation since 2004 as a performance manager for the national team.

Benjamin Kugel

Kugel has been working with the DFB as part of the EXOS team since 2010 and also currently serves as the head of performance for FC Köln, who won the Bundesliga second division title last season.

Darcy Norman

Darcy is a physiotherapist, strength coach and athletic trainer who has worked in all capacities across various sports. As well as work with professional cyclists, he was with Bayern Munich (between 2008 and 2010), and Germany for Euro 2012 and during their successful World Cup campaign in 2014.