FODEN AND THE SECRET KICKABOUTS BACK IN A STOCKPORT CAR PARK
City’s local hero has talent to rule Europe with club and country, but fantastic Phil is still a homebird at heart
PHIL FODEN was back in Edgeley, Stockport earlier this month for a photo shoot, just a couple of days after he had starred in Manchester City’s Champions League semi-final win over Paris Saint-Germain. Suddenly he stopped the driver to point out a non-descript car park with a few bollards next to a row of shops. ‘That’s it!’ he said. ‘That’s where I used to play!’ Hours were spent alone on the concrete strip, a few hundred yards from the house he has since bought for his nan, honing the skills at which the whole of Europe now marvels. Playing one-twos alone off the unpredictable bollards doubtless contributed to the ease of touch he exhibits now.
And the long hours spent alone with a ball at his feet presumably appealed to the introvert in Foden, whose other passion in life outside football is fishing.
But the punchline to the story is that Foden revealed how sometimes, when he is back in town visiting his nan, he will still take himself off to the car park with a ball and relive childhood memories with a spot of extra-curricular training.
Foden was buoyant that day as he drove around Edgeley, giving his representative Owen Brown a guided tour of his neighbourhood, the houses where he has lived and sharing family stories.
In tow was two-year-old son Ronnie, as Foden was on childcare duty. All who know him remark on what an enthusiastic and devoted father he is. He and partner Becca Cooke, also 20, are expecting a baby daughter in the autumn.
With three Premier League titles, an FA Cup winners’ medal and four League Cup winners’ medals, the Champions League final and Euros to come, he has fitted a fair amount into the first three years of his adult life.
IT HAS been an extraordinary season for Foden though it was only a few months ago that fresh doubts were aired as to whether he might have to move away from the Etihad to fulfil his potential. From mid-October to Christmas he started one Premier League game.
That spell had come after he had been sent home from England duty in September, just 48 hours after making his international debut against Iceland, for breaching Covid guidelines along with Mason Greenwood by inviting two young women back to their hotel.
An apology followed and those close to him say he won’t make the same mistake again. But for a lifelong City fan, being left on the bench in the Manchester derby at Old Trafford in December was an especially bitter blow.
That seems inconceivable now. Not only will Foden be expected to start the Champions
League final, he is on course to start for England in the Euros. The day before the Champions League final he will celebrate his 21st birthday. This City fan from Greater Manchester is a key player in the star-studded global team funded by Abu Dhabi’s Sheik Mansour which has satellite clubs in North and South America, Asia and Australia. In the era of globalisation, Foden is the link to locality. For staff at Manchester City’s academy it is the culmination of a decade of work. Given that the proteges they train have to compete against the likes of Kevin De Bruyne, Ruben Dias and Sergio Aguero, it is a tall order to produce first-team players, but Foden shows it can be done.
‘For the club to be in the Champions League final is amazing,’ says City’s academy director Jason Wilcox, the former Premier League winner with Blackburn. ‘We’re proud of everybody who works in the football club in achieving that but to have one of your graduates potentially playing in that game, it’s going to be a proud moment for everybody.
‘There’s a lot of people who have left the academy who would have been with us in the early stages of his journey. We have to give full credit to them as well. I’ve been part of his journey but academy staff past and present have played a huge part.’
One of those is Mark Allen, now at Swansea City but who was the director of City’s academy from 2009 -2017, in Foden’s formative years. ‘When Phil was in the Under 9s, I would be walking around different agegroup games on a Sunday morning but you would make sure you spent a little bit more time watching Phil’s game, just marvelling at some of the stuff he could do. He always stood out from a very young age.
‘We always realised he was something special. I’ve seen lots of kids with an abundance of skill and his technical ability was phenomenal but it was his all-round game awareness that was exceptional.
‘His spatial awareness, appreciation of a pass, weight of pass… he could see things on a football pitch that was leap years ahead of other youngsters. When you saw Phil around, he was never without a football and maybe that becomes intrinsic with the introduction to the ball at that young age.
‘But ability only takes you so far. You need attitude and application. He was absolutely phenomenal in that and his parents were outstanding in instilling that. I think that is what separates the good from the great.’
Yet there was one blot on the horizon, something with which his current manager Pep Guardiola would have been familiar: his physicality. He was smaller than all his peers, as was Guardiola, who was demoted down the ranks at Barcelona because of his slight frame.
‘Phil wasn’t the biggest and physically there was no way he could compete,’ said Allen. ‘But he was smart enough to work around the physicality.
‘I suppose his frustration came when he saw players in his group being promoted into older groups. While he had the ability to do that, it wasn’t wise nor prudent to push him into overage groups where it was significantly more physical.
He wasn’t prepared for that. I had several conversations with him about that.’
Against Foden in Porto next weekend will be Mason Mount. They are old adversaries having featured in the 2017 FA Youth Cup final, which Chelsea won and which also featured Jadon Sancho for City and Callum Hudson-Odoi for Chelsea.
It is not so long ago that academies were routinely berated by former pros for producing tippy-tappy skilful players lacking the mentality to mix it in the real world.
‘The thing that excites everyone working in academy football is these comments that the academies are not producing enough talent,’ said Wilcox. ‘Our job is to keep dispelling that myth. It’s a challenge we embrace.
‘And when you look at talent coming through to the England national team and the high hopes we have for Gareth Southgate and his players in summer, it tells you that
we’re doing something right. We have Trent Alexander-Arnold, Mason Greenwood, Mason Mount, Phil Foden, Jadon Sancho. I could name others. We have to keep pushing and get more through while understanding that first-team managers are judged on winning trophies.
‘Instead of the first-team managers dropping down and giving opportunities to academy players, I don’t believe in that. Let’s reverse that thinking. Lets’ not feel sorry for ourselves. We have to produce academy players that fit into the manager’s model.
‘We know our first-team manager, who’s hugely supportive of youth development, is a serial winner who’s judged on winning trophies. But we know if we get the player at the right level he’ll give him opportunity.’
Amid all the excitement, Foden has been experiencing one of the first major tragedies of his short life in recent weeks. Alongside him on this journey had been lawyer and adviser Richard Green, a friend to the Foden family and mentor since childhood.
Green, 56, was admitted to hospital with coronavirus in late February. Quickly his condition deteriorated, he was placed on a ventilator and died in April, leaving a wife and three children. For weeks Foden had been playing with a ‘Get Well Soon Richard’ T-shirt under his jersey, hoping to score and cheer up his friend. He was devastated when hearing of his death. Days later he went out to play Borussia Dortmund in what was the most important game of his career in the Champions League quarter-finals. He played superbly and scored the last-minute goal, which teed up the victory in Dortmund. To celebrate he pointed to the sky in memory of his friend. All those who knew the vivacious Green, who also advised Rafa Benitez and was a friend to Kenny Dalglish, understood why there was such a bond between a 20-year-old player and this larger-than-life middleaged lawyer.
Green had helped to recruit Benitez to Liverpool in 2004 while working for the club and always insisted that the team’s Champions League triumph in Istanbul in 2005 was his finest professional moment.
Foden is well aware what another Champions League final, this time watching his protege, would have meant to Green.