Thick of it or bird's eye view

Coaching and managing top professional sports teams is an unforgiving business. Staff turnover is massively high in this cut throat world, and the very best performers are always looking for that something extra which can give them the edge over their rivals. And yet, there seems to be a large role to be played by tradition - this can be the only explanation for the strange difference of approaches between rugby coaches, who tend to sit up high in the stands, and football managers who prefer to be down on the touchline (except when they're banned by the fourth official, of course). Intuitively, this seems like the wrong way round - the world of rugby is such a physical and high intensity sport, where being up close to players would seem to be the best option. Here you can gee up players to ensure they're playing at maximum intensity, get a good feeling of stamina and energy levels, and make your opinion clear to the referees (although it would have to be done politely, given rugby's strict rules and traditions about respecting referees). Whereas football, with its greater degree of tactical variety focusing on the use of space, would seem to benefit from a bird's eye view - enabling managers to manipulate their teams, as a general would move his forces. There probably isn't one approach which is decidedly better than the other, with the different approaches most likely to suit different people - but it would be nice to see managers from both sports experimenting with other approach...