Tom Brady’s best friend is now part of the furniture at Birmingham City

Birmingham City are being advised by Alex Guerrero, who was Tom Brady's 'body coach' during his illustrious NFL career

The name Alex Guerrero meant very little to Birmingham City fans this time last year, but 12 months on and Tom Brady’s closest ally is a major player behind-the-scenes in B9.

Guerrero has spent more time in Birmingham than minority investor Brady and has become part of the furniture at the first team's base in Henley-in-Arden this season.

The 60-year-old's influence was apparent last weekend when he was hugged by every single Blues player pitchside at Wembley before their Vertu Trophy final defeat to Peterborough United.

And it was magnified on Tuesday evening when updates on the Companies House of Shelby Companies Limited, the holding company through which Knighthead controls Blues, revealed that Guerrero and his wife Alicia are among a number of new shareholders.

But who is he? Brady first started working with alternative medicine man Guerrero in 2005 in a bid to extend his NFL career. With Guerrero by his side, Brady won three Super Bowls, and the NFL icon credits his aide for helping him improve his sporting performance with age.

Brady has publicly dubbed Guerrero his ‘body coach’ and in 2013 they launched TB12 – a company which uses Brady’s profile to pass on Guerrero’s methods on performance, recovery and nutrition to other athletes. Blues had two of Brady and Guerrero’s coaches, Peter Cummings and Rob Brennan, working with their first team last season. TB12, also known as TBRx, was started after a conversation between Brady and Guerrero in 2012 which, according to their website, went something like: “If what we’re doing works for you, why wouldn’t it work for everyone?”

Explaining how it works, Guerrero said: “The body coach-client relationship has to be a partnership. That’s what I value most about being able to work hand-in-hand with someone – you’re both working towards the same goal, and it’s so rewarding to watch as that goal is achieved. You truly form a special bond when you accomplish something together.”

In an article by the New York Times, Guerrero was referenced as Brady’s ‘spiritual guide, counsellor, pal, nutrition advisor, trainer, massage therapist and family member’. Many of the beliefs Brady preaches on nutrition and wellness within sport are shared and promoted by Guerrero.

Guerrero stresses the importance of hydration and the use of electrolytes - substances that help the body maintain the balance between fluids inside and outside of cells - to enhance performance. Asked for one piece of advice during a feature interview with the TB12 website, Guerrero said: “Hydrate! The most important thing you can do. I say it so much that whenever my youngest daughter’s friends have any physical complaints, she tells them, ‘Drink more water!’”

Drinking water and using electrolytes are not revolutionary ideas. Part of Guerrero’s skill is in the way he advises and improves athletes in the gym.

Guerrero – whose father is Argentine and his mother Italian – had an interest in football long before he pitched up at Blues. However, there is a question mark over how his methods, which have been used in the NFL in the main, can be applied to football with athletes of different body types.

His career and association with Brady hasn’t been without its controversies either. Legendary New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick clashed with Brady over Guerrero’s influence and made a joke about it during last year's ‘Roast of Tom Brady’ on Netflix. Belichick said: "People say that Tom and I butted heads a lot, and in a way, that was true, but not really. It was hard to butt heads with Tom because he was so far up Alex Guerrero’s ***."

Guerrero’s methods have been criticised in some quarters and Brady ended interviews over the persistent line of questioning about his ally back in 2018. It was reported in 2023 that they had split as business partners but Guerrero’s growing role at Blues proves they are very much still working in tandem.

And if you ask Brady about Guerrero, as BirminghamLive did last year, he lights up.

“It’s really about maximising your potential as an athlete and I learned most of that through my own experience,” Brady said.

“I had tried a lot of things because I loved playing football and I wanted to play it for as long as I could, and I realised the investment I needed to make in myself was the only way it was going to allow me to do the thing that I loved, which was throw the football and lead my teammates.

“I began to explore areas where I could learn and grow. I met my best friend and body coach Alex Guerrero who’s involved with our organisation here and we’re implementing a set of beliefs that worked and have been tried and tested over a long period of time.

“I want these players to have the ability to do what I was able to do. Come out here, play the sport they love, change their own lives and the lives of their families, perform well and change the lives of everybody in this community.

“So much of it is investing that time and energy in your training, in your recovery. The things you’re drinking and eating are so important to the way that you perform on the pitch. The players have really embraced it and I’m excited to see how they do that over the course of a season.

“He’s the greatest body coach in the world. He’s a tremendous asset to what we’re doing here to these players, to our medical staff and the athletic support team.

“This is all about preparing in advance. You can’t wait to get injured before you realise, ‘Oh I need to do something different’. Being proactive with how you treat your body allows you to go out and perform with confidence.

“I put a lot of time and energy and investment with Alex before I was going to train during the off-season so that when it came to these moments my body always felt good. The best benefit is that as the season goes along you become more and more conditioned to perform at a high level.

“The more you are on task doing your job through your preparation, through your recovery, the better you are going to feel as the season goes. Whereas most players feel like their bodies deteriorate, we want our players’ bodies to feel like they are getting better as the season goes along.”