THE ULTIMATE KOMPANY MAN
Vinnie has been heart & soul of City’s transformation from nearly-men to rampant history-makers.. and even though the club tried to keep him, he goes home to Anderlecht with grateful thanks and calls for a statue
IT says everything about Vincent Kompany’s value to Manchester City that they exhausted every option to try to keep him.
Kompany, who has ended his illustrious 11-year spell with City to take up the player-manager role at his first club, Anderlecht, was offered a series of roles.
First-team coach, club ambassador, player-coach at New York City FC, the club’s hierarchy pulled out all the stops in a bid to keep hold of their inspirational leader.
But the pull of returning to his native Belgium with Anderlecht proved too strong to resist, and Kompany will say farewell at today’s open-top bus Treble parade through Manchester.
When he joined City from Hamburg for a modest £6million in 2008, there was no hint of the glittering success that would follow or the emotional bond that would develop between player and club.
But after four Premier League titles, four League Cups, two FA Cups, 360 appearances and 20 goals, the time has come for Kompany to close the book on City and begin a new chapter in his life.
Injuries may have sabotaged the last few seasons of his stay at the Etihad, but such enforced setbacks have failed to diminish his influence and impact, on or off the field.
On the pitch, Kompany remains a colossus of a defender when injury-free, as he proved in City’s immaculate title run-in, capped by his 28-yard goalof-the-season strike to secure a crucial
1-0 win over Leicester.
If that was the iconic moment from Kompany’s final season, the other highpoint of his
City career was the towering header in another 1-0 win at the Etihad, over Manchester United in 2012, which helped clinch the club’s first Premier League title at the expense of their neighbours, in whose shadow they had laboured for so many years.
Kompany’s reading of the game and anticipation of danger has been flawless in recent weeks, another reason Pep Guardiola and his staff were so keen to keep the 33-year-old, in a reduced playing capacity or coaching role.
Off the pitch, Kompany’s influence extended throughout the club. Even when injured and unable to play, he made his presence count, offering advice and encouragement to team-mates, lifting the place simply by his presence, and showed remarkable mental strength to come back from so many career-threatening injuries.
And if any player encapsulated City’s soul, it was Kompany. Having married a Mancunian in Carla, and into a family of City and United supporters, he understood the rivalry better than any of the foreign players brought in to rouse the Blues from years of mediocrity.
His three children were born in Manchester and his bond with the city is such he launched a move to tackle homelessness there, a commitment that will continue even though he will be living back in his homeland.
Committed and reliable on the field, erudite and articulate off it, Kompany showed footballers could have a hinterland beyond the game itself, fluent in four languages and earning a Masters in Global Business in 2017.
The City of today is unrecognisable from the club he joined when Mark Hughes was manager (left) and a week before the takeover by Sheikh Mansour that would transform the club from underachievers to serial winners.
“I signed my contract before I saw the training ground,” recalled Kompany. “They would drive you out there when you signed your contract, but not before!
“I remember going to the toilet for the first time and it was two cubicles. One had a door and the other one had the door hanging off, almost.
“There was a machine with weights where you couldn’t really lift it because there was so much rust on it. There was a punch bag that was half cut through the middle as if someone came in with a samurai sword. And it was cold.”
Not any more. City’s home is now the City Football Academy, a £200m state-of-the-art training complex the envy of clubs worldwide.
Kompany has seen both sides of the coin and played his part in elevating City to the status of England’s dominant club and among Europe’s elite.
After his wonder strike against Leicester, Gary Neville, commentating on the game, jokingly asked where Kompany would like his statue to go. After Kompany’s colossal contribution to City over the past decade, a statue is the least that the club legend deserves.