Poles apart
They were two of the stars of the 2017 Youth Cup final. Now Phil Foden is at the heart of England’s Euro plans... but what on earth has happened to Mason Mount?
THE FA Youth Cup final of 2017 produced 12 full internationals, a phenomenal number from a single Under 18 fixture even accounting for the aggressive nature of teenage recruitment going on at the two finalists at the time.
Manchester City and Chelsea contested the final. They have been the dominant forces at youth level over the last two decades and this proved an extraordinary year.
Chelsea, comfortable winners over two legs, featured future England stars Reece James, Marc Guehi, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Conor Gallagher and Mason Mount — plus Ike Ugbo who went on to play for Canada — while City had Phil Foden and Jadon Sancho.
Also in the City squad were Brahim Diaz, Lukas Nmecha and Jeremie Frimpong, all now playing top-flight football in big European leagues and capped by elite nations, and Arijanet Muric, the goalkeeper who helped Burnley win promotion last season and represents Kosovo.
Foden, still only 16 at the time, and Mount were the playmakers on either side, identified as the most exciting prodigies inside their academies and tipped for great things.
Within six months, Pep Guardiola handed Foden his City debut as a late sub against Feyenoord in the Champions League and used him sparingly thereafter. Mount moved on loan to Vitesse Arnhem and then Derby County under Frank Lampard. Both were selected for England duty at the Under 21 Euros in 2019, Euro 2020 and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, although their club careers unfolded at contrasting speeds.
Mount returned to Chelsea when Lampard got the manager’s job, replacing Maurizio Sarri, and with a transfer ban in place put his faith in the graduates of their acclaimed academy.
From the Championship play-off final at Wembley and a summer at the Under 21 Euros, Mount became an instant regular for Chelsea and England in a campaign that dragged on for a year, interrupted by the Covid pandemic.
In the next season, he won the Champions League, beating City in the final, reached the final of the Euros, followed by another long season with his club, including the Club World Cup.
By the time he went to the World Cup in Qatar, Mount had played more than 21,000 competitive minutes of senior club football, virtually non-stop in five and a half years since the Youth Cup final.
That was about double the number of minutes played by Foden, also integral to his club as Manchester City set out on long campaigns in pursuit of the biggest prizes but under the careful watch of Guardiola.
Mount had 36 England caps when the World Cup ended and has yet to add another. He is England’s forgotten man.
His form and ability to influence had been noticeably fading ahead of Qatar and he has endured serious struggles with fitness since. He has barely played in the last 12 months.
Last season fizzled out for him at Chelsea amid pelvic problems and injuries have disrupted his first season at Manchester United. Erik ten Hag says he could be back soon and we hope when he is that his troubles are behind him. But he returns with United moving into a new era, perhaps with a new manager.
Foden returned from Qatar with 22 caps and now has 31, maturing into one of Guardiola’s best players, a leading contender for Footballer of the Year and central to Gareth Southgate’s plans as another Euros approaches. The beauty of hindsight suggests Guardiola got it right with Foden where Lampard and then Thomas Tuchel overloaded Mount until his body cracked under the toll.
But it is never quite so simple. Guardiola was not fighting for his job like Lampard, desperately trying to get Derby promoted to stave off financial crisis then battling to preserve Chelsea’s Champions League status having sold Eden Hazard, under a transfer ban.
Tuchel, too, worked with a background of extreme uncertainty as the club’s owner Roman Abramovich was sanctioned by the UK Government after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. For both managers, Mount was among the most reliable performers, worth his place and seemingly taking all this in his stride.
Moreover, he would have wanted to play. For years, Chelsea’s academy graduates grumbled about seeing no pathway to the first team.
Under Lampard, it was clear and Foden may have looked south and wished he could command the same degree of time on the pitch.
Guardiola, however, had the luxury of stability. No need to prove what he could do. No looming threat of the sack. And a squad of the highest quality, capable of offering protection to ease the best emerging talents in at the right pace.
In football’s wild sea of imponderables, it is impossible to project the future and call all these things accurately, but the blossoming of Phil Foden has been a triumph of patience and restraint.