Kompany’s TUNNEL VISION
Football just got more intrusive but City’s skipper is thinking only titles
EVEN in Vincent Kompany’s long and varied career, tomorrow’s game against Everton will be a first, leading his Manchester City team-mates through a one-way glass tunnel in which supporters dining behind the screen can watch their every move, but the players can’t see them.
‘Maybe tunnel bust-ups will stop, maybe they won’t,’ he says with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Football is always going to be about emotions, and now the more you show, the more people will see it. It’ll make it more interesting to be in the Tunnel Club I guess.’
The tunnel is not the only new innovation being rolled out at the Etihad. The new dressing room area is circular, spacious and open plan, a million miles away from the traditional spit and sawdust changing room where the manager would slam the door shut and deliver home truths.
At 31, Kompany is hardly at the veteran stage yet, but as City’s captain and longest-serving player, the dawning of a new era does make him reflect on the changes he’s seen in his nine years at the club, signing a week before the club were bought by Abu Dhabi’s Sheik Mansour.
‘I’ve so many dressing-room memories. In my first season, the Brazilians Robinho and Elano would do keepy-ups with their socks, making the rest of us feel like amateurs. All you could do is shrug your shoulders and go “Oh well, I’ll just do some push-ups!”
‘The noise was also something that was a shock coming from Hamburg in German football where everything was very serious. In Germany, I’d read a book to help relax, which I thought was pretty sensible, but even then the gaffer would say “What are you doing, you’re meant to be focusing on the game!”
‘Then I come to England, it’s all noise and pranks and banter. Mark Hughes liked to put on inspirational videos sometimes.
‘And of course we had massive arguments in there, which I take as a positive. Those rows at half-time and then 45 minutes later you’ve won the game and everyone is hugging and embracing.’
Some of the core of the two titlewinning teams that Kompany has captained are still there; David Silva, Sergio Aguero, Yaya Toure. But there is a younger generation that Pep Guardiola is counting on as well: Gabriel Jesus, Raheem Sterling, John Stones and Kevin de Bruyne.
With Joe Hart and Pablo Zabaleta playing at West Ham, Kompany is the last of the ‘Three Amigos’ still entrusted with being a custodian of City’s heritage.
‘We’re grown up. It is football, nothing lasts forever,’ he says. ‘When I came to City there was a gap in the dressing room as regards passing on the baton, as you say. There was not a lot then — Dunny [Richard Dunne] was maybe the only one.
‘It was the staff and people around who would tell you about Shaun Goater and Paul Dickov, what they did for the club. But it is more powerful when it comes from the current players. I like to go into the academy, meet people, see what’s going on. So even before the young players get to the first-team squad, they already know me.’
Entertainment and three points are what City fans will expect against Everton after Guardiola’s team made an impressive start with a win at Brighton.
The presence of Wayne Rooney in an Everton shirt will add spice and Kompany has his own reasons for trying to keep the former United man quiet. Rooney scored one of the greatest goals in the Premier League’s 25 years when his overhead kick helped beat City in 2009.
‘That goal was a testimony to his talent because in that game I had him in my pocket!’ says Kompany.
‘But top strikers do things at unbelievable times. I was really strong for 90 minutes and then he pulls the overhead kick and I’m thinking “Oh, come on…”.’
City are heavily fancied this season. ‘We’ve worked really hard to get this way of controlling games and strangling the opposition. Nothing is left to luck or chance,’ Kompany says.
‘It’s the first time in my career I’ve worked so hard on a gameplan. Second season, we have a few new players to integrate but overall there’s less to teach, it feels more natural.
In a season of sagas involving a dozen players from Philippe Coutinho to Virgil van Dijk, Alexis Sanchez and Diego Costa – none of whom played on the opening weekend – Kompany is held up as a beacon of virtue.
It is a status he is reluctant to accept because he knows the reality of modern football.
‘Loyalty is a difficult topic in football. Everybody wants to have it but in reality managers are thinking “If I can find a better player, you’re out”, and players are thinking “If I can find a club that wins more games, I’m out.”
‘I’ve been lucky enough to be at a club that has grown as my career has developed. But sometimes you have managers and directors that make decisions, and if you don’t fit the plans you can love the club as much as you want but you might have to move on.’ As for his injury problems, Kompany said he never felt in despair. He suffered three separate leg, groin and calf injuries last season that caused him to miss 22 games before ending the campaign strongly.
‘I’m a rational person and I needed to be calm. There are a couple of guys at the academy who have had some bad injuries, cruciates, and I’ve said to them that you only realise when you’re injured that you can actually improve as a footballer.’
Kompany is an unusual footballer, a leader and a statesman but modest with it. Perhaps it is his family background.
His father fled the Congo amid violent turmoil and is now involved in Brussels politics and his mother was involved in unions.
The boy from Belgium has come to represent Manchester City as much as Colin Bell or Dickov.
There is no glass ceiling for the man at the front of the glass tunnel.