SECRETS OF THAT FIRST TITLE GLORY

VINCENT KOMPANY and City were locked in a two-horse race with United at the end of the 2011-12 season in what was to become a memorable finale. ‘I think that’s the game with the most pressure on it that I’ve ever been in,’ says Kompany of the seismic April 2012 derby in which his goal saw City take control of the title race. ‘I’m good at dealing with pressure so I was kind of comfortable still, but it was insane because it was a midweek game so everyone was watching it. It was United versus City. It was basically for the title. ‘I think you can almost see it on my face after the goal, this…’ he searches for the words to describe it ‘…it’s not anger, or frustration, but it’s definitely pent-up emotion that comes out because you want to almost rebel against this image. You want to rebel against what everybody thinks this is going to turn out to be. That game was fantastic because obviously we scored the goal, which happened to be me, but we didn’t concede one shot on target that game, against Manchester United, title contenders, and that to me was powerful in terms of how you react in big moments.’ All City needed to do was beat relegation-threatened QPR at home to secure their first title for 44 years. But going into injury time they found themselves 2-1 down. ‘It makes me sick to even talk about it,’ Kompany says, when asked to contemplate what would have happened if things had turned out differently. ‘I think we would have gone into hiding for two months. It would have been a stain, really, because we did so many great

things that season. Throwing it away against a team that’s fighting for relegation at home would have been a catastrophe. I can’t even describe it. I don’t know where the belief would have come from for anything else after that.’ Kompany believes big characters came up for the big moments. ‘We went to Newcastle for the second-last game of the season,’ he recalls, ‘and Yaya [Toure] came up to me in the hotel and he said, “Oh Vinnie. You know, you’ve headed the ball and tackled brilliantly all season.

Toure de force: Yaya scores one of his two goals in a crucial win at Newcastle in 2012 Thank you. Now,” and he taps his chest, “leave it to me”.’ ‘I was like, “What’s he on about?” Oh, Yaya being himself again”. So, I just go and do my thing. ‘Next thing you know, we play this game, win 2-0, and Yaya scores two. Big players, big moments kind of thing. ‘Then, we prepare for the QPR game, and Kun [Sergio Aguero] does the same thing. He comes to me and says, “Vinnie, today, leave it to me”. You know, they’d never done this before, they’ve never done since. Only these two games. I’ll remember it forever.’