Phil Foden blossoms into 'world class' player at Man City as Guardiola's steady nurturing pays off
Mon, Mar 4, 2024
Soccer News (AP)
MANCHESTER, England (AP) - Legendary. The best player in the Premier League. Manchester City's most important player this season.
Not Rodri. Not Kevin De Bruyne. Not even Erling Haaland.
No, these gushing descriptions dished out by Pep Guardiola are for an academy graduate whose development he has seemingly paced to perfection to what he is now - a serial matchwinner for the best team in Europe.
Phil Foden has suddenly turned into the player every City - and England - fan hoped. And his special ability was on display Sunday in one of the biggest matches in world soccer as Foden - not De Bruyne or Haaland - inspired City's fightback for a 3-1 win that kept the team on course for a fourth straight Premier League title.
"Winning games is when you become a world-class player," Guardiola said of Foden, who has been his pet project ever since the Spanish coach arrived at City in the summer of 2016 and was told he had a generational talent on his hands in a precocious 17-year-old local lad who was about to join in training with the senior squad for the first time.
"We saw something special. Unique," Guardiola remembers about Foden's first day in training.
Yet Guardiola bided his time. He played Foden 10 times in all competitions in the 2017-18 season, 26 in 2018-19 and 38 in 2019-20. Even last season, when City won the Premier League-FA Cup-Champions League treble, Foden finished the season outside Guardiola's first-choice lineup.
Now he is front and center, one of the first names on the team sheet and a player opponents fear.
Poor Victor Lindelof, a solid center back from Sweden who was deployed out of position as a left back in the derby, was repeatedly left grasping for air as Foden twisted this way. And that was just in a first half when Foden could easily have scored a hat trick, only for wasteful finishing or some great saves by Andre Onana.
Foden's cutting edge came in the second half. He slashed inside Lindelof and smashed a rising long-range shot into the top corner for the equalizer then slotted home the go-ahead goal in the 80th minute.
"He will already be a legendary player because in a short age, the games played, the minutes, the goals scored, the titles won and he is from the home, that is why the connection with the fans is unbelievable," Guardiola said of Foden, a five-time Premier League winner.
"He is the player of the season, with all the respect for incredible players. No one has been so decisive for us as him this season."
Those must be special words for the 23-year-old Foden, who joined the club's academy at the age of 9 and was in the crowd at the Etihad - and later on the field with his mother in celebration - when Sergio Aguero scored the stoppage-time goal against Queens Park Rangers in 2012 to win City the Premier League title for the first time.
"I want to be that player, the one that wins games for the team," said Foden, who has 18 goals in 40 games in all competitions this season - his career-best haul in a single campaign. "I feel like I have that quality to score a lot of games and turn up in big games. I want to keep doing that.
"And I've got to do it in the national team as well, not just for City ... I know I can get even better."
Indeed, talk in England has invariably switched to where Foden fits into the national team ahead of the European Championship in Germany starting June. With Bukayo Saka also in great form and seemingly secure in the right-wing berth, Foden could either start on the left wing or as an attacking central midfielder alongside Jude Bellingham and behind Harry Kane.
That's quite the front four Gareth Southgate has at his disposal.
Guardiola has never quite trusted Foden as a central midfielder. Foden seemed the natural heir to City great David Silva, who left the club in 2020, but it hasn't materialized yet, with Guardiola feeling he lacked the requisite game management to play in central areas.
That has changed this season. Tellingly, Guardiola praised his maturity on Sunday, with Foden scoring his first off the right wing, his second on the left and also popping up in central areas in the second half.
Southgate has a big decision to make in a few months about where to deploy Foden at the Euros.
On current form, though, he's destined to be a star at the tournament wherever he plays.
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