EXCLUSIVEPHIL FODEN: Newly-栄冠を与えるd FWA Footballer of the Year on the secrets of wearing No 47, what makes Jude Bellingham so special... and what he really thinks of Jurgen Klopp
- Phil Foden is 注目する,もくろむing a 二塁打 with City and could 勝利,勝つ another individual award
Some footballers like to turn their 長,率いるs away from history, the challenges it 現在のs and the 圧力 it brings. Phil Foden doesn’t think that way. He wants to walk に向かって it.
For Foden and Manchester City, a 発射 at a 支持する/優勝者s League defence and a 連続する treble have gone, ground into the dirt by Real Madrid’s 拒絶 to buckle during an epic Etihad night.
But at City when one door の近くにs, there is always another one to walk through. And for Foden and his team-mates a 思い出の品 of what remains possible over the next five weeks is 令状 large on the 塀で囲む every time they lace up their boots.
‘We understand it here,’ Foden, who was?投票(する)d the Football Writers' 協会's Footballer of the Year, says.
‘We know if we 勝利,勝つ the 首相 League this time we will have done something new. It’s something we have our 注目する,もくろむs on.
Phil Foden is 目的(とする)ing to build on Manchester City's miraculous Treble last year with a whole new challenge in the 首相 League
The 学院 卒業生(する) was first interviewed by Mail Sport five years ago - and his meteoric rise since is (疑いを)晴らす to see?
The defending 支持する/優勝者s were knocked out of the 支持する/優勝者s League by Real Madrid, but 焦点(を合わせる) now switches closer to home
- EPISODE 91: Can Manchester City 対処する without Pep Guardiola?
- EPISODE 90: How Manchester 部隊d CAN 勝利,勝つ crunch FA Cup 衝突/不一致
- EPISODE 89: Why Manchester City aren't the 推論する/理由 the League is boring
- 'It hasn't worked!' Is VAR the problem or the 解答?
- EPISODE 87: Why 部隊d must 涙/ほころび 負かす/撃墜する Old Trafford and move to Wembley
‘Every time we put our boots on at the training ground that 説 is there on the 塀で囲む.
‘It says: “Nobody has won four 首相 Leagues in a 列/漕ぐ/騒動…yet”.
‘We want to put ourselves in history.
‘Every day I sit and look at that スローガン and I think: “Why not?”.’
The last time Foden sat 負かす/撃墜する with Mail Sport was almost five years ago. Foden was 18 and the football world was talking about why City 経営者/支配人 Pep Guardiola didn’t play him more or at least send him out on 貸付金. Foden himself, just eighteen months after his first team debut, was いっそう少なく preoccupied with all that. Beset by ペテン師 syndrome ? a former City ball boy in a changing room 十分な of world 星/主役にするs ? he told me he had to stop himself asking Kevin De Bruyne for autographs every time he turned up for work.
Foden was a kid 支援する then. Probably the most talented kid in England but a kid just the same. That day he agreed to jump into a ball 炭坑,オーケストラ席 for our photographer. This week he laughed at that memory. It seems faintly ridiculous now and that’s because it is. Because now Foden, a father of two, is arguably the most important player in Guardiola’s team, the scorer of big goals and the owner of important moments. Manchester 部隊d. Real at the Bernabeu. It doesn’t 事柄 who the 対立 is.
Boyhood Manchester City fan Foden now plays と一緒に club icons such as Kevin De Bruyne
The player, who has had arguably his best season of his career, was recently Player of the Match at the Bernabeu
Foden gets nervous before some big games. ‘バタフライs in my stomach when I get to the stadium and I know it’s on,’ he says. But they disappear once the game starts. ‘That first touch of the ball and I know I am in my home,’ he nods.
Foden is still a young man. He is not 24 until the end of this month. But as a sportsman he is all grown up. He could 勝利,勝つ another Player of the Year honour and Gareth Southgate will rely on him when England get to Germany for the European 選手権. Foden, Bellingham, Saka, Kane. No wonder the 残り/休憩(する) of Europe is nervous.
So we see him 異なって now. The questions have been answered. They are 存在 answered. Gu ardiola was 権利 all along. Who would have thought it?
‘It’s been hard いつかs, you know, 存在 the City fan who was a ball boy and then making it through the levels to the first team,’ Foden explains.
‘I don’t think it will ever really change you know? A little bit of that feeling is always gonna be there. But I have balance now. Maybe it’s finally gone this year, I don’t know.
At 23, Foden is a family man with two young children (pictured after winning last season's 首相 League トロフィー)
Foden has 認める that he still gets nervous before the biggest matches - which might come as a surprise
After the season ends, the 的 will be European glory with England, と一緒に a cast of young talents 含むing Bukayo Saka and Jude Bellingham
‘The challenge for me was always a mountain to climb to even reach the first team. In my 長,率いる I just 手配中の,お尋ね者 to make one 外見 for this club and be able to say that I had done it.
‘But once I did that I thought: “No I can 現実に play here. I can 扱う the 基準”.
‘Now I am at that 行う/開催する/段階 where I feel like I am a 重要な player i n the team. I feel very comfortable with that.’
The house where Foden grew up stands on a street corner a beefy 解放する/自由な-kick away from Stockport 郡’s home at Edgeley Park.
It is to this house that Foden returned 持つ/拘留するing a 商売/仕事 card at the age of just six. It had been given to him at his school by a football scout called Terry John who had visited looking for talent. He had watched Foden dribble a ball 一連の会議、交渉/完成する some 反対/詐欺s and reckoned the kid had something.
As we talk and then do some filming for Mail Sport’s social マスコミ channels at City’s training ground this week, John stands 静かに in the corner. He is Foden’s 商売/仕事 経営者/支配人 now. Foden has always kept his circle tight and says he always will.
‘I have known Terry all my life,’ Foden says.
‘It’s important to keep people there who have been on your 旅行. Luckily he (機の)カム in that day to school. Had he not, I don’t know where I would be 権利 now.
‘It’s hard, you know. There are a lot of people who suddenly want to be part of your life who didn’t know you before you become famous.
Foden has worked hard to keep his inner circle の近くに as he navigates the choppy waters of footballing stardom
The Treble-勝利者 was born into his support of his 現在の club, before joining their 学院
As a child, Foden always 手配中の,お尋ね者 to have a ball at his feet - only then would he 'be happy'
‘I have always tried to keep 負かす/撃墜する to earth and the people I have around me 港/避難所’t changed. I have a small group and that’s the way I like it.’
Foden’s 旅行 through the City age groups was 早い. It began seven miles from home at the club’s old Platt 小道/航路 施設, の近くに to Manchester’s famous curry mile in Rusholme. It’s owned by the university now.
‘It was an education,’ smiles Foden.
‘We had to wait for community groups to finish on the pitches before we could even get on.
‘But I wouldn’t change it. It was where I learned my (手先の)技術.
‘I just 手配中の,お尋ね者 to have a ball at my feet. Then I was happy. Playing with older boys helped me 扱う the ball in tight areas and use my physicality.
‘When I 結局 reached the first team, it was like 存在 a kid again. You know, I was 支援する to 存在 the smallest. I remembered everything I had been taught as a kid and 簡単に transferred it in to the first team. It felt just the same.’
Once the talent was 設立するd and the road to prominence mapped out, it was on to his club’s modern City Football 学院, the sprawling 16-pitch 施設 across the 二重の carriageway from the Etihad Stadium.
On his Instagram account, there is a wonderful photograph of Foden training with the City first team for the first time in 2016. He has the ball ? of course he has ? while Sergio Aguero and Yaya 小旅行する lurk nearby. At 16-years-old, he is a boy to their man in every 考えられる way.
‘That photo makes me very proud,’ Foden says.
‘株ing that changing room was a real big moment.
During his interview with Ian Ladyman, Foden debunked a 重要な Man City myth about himself
This season, the prodigious talent has 得点する/非難する/20d 22 goals and been an 無敵の 影響(力)
‘I remember going into the Rondo [where a player in the middle of a circle tries to 迎撃する passes made from one 味方する to the other] for the first time and just thinking: “Oh wow. How am I gonna reach that level?”
‘That Rondo… you just weren’t getting the ball. You were stuck in there in the middle for about ten minutes. But then, as time wore on, you learn to move the ball a bit quicker, just like they do.’
There is a myth in the blue half of Manchester about Foden and his 簡潔な/要約する (一定の)期間 as a City ball boy. It says that he was the one who threw the ball 支援する for the corner that led to Edin Dzeko’s equaliser against QPR as City 救助(する)d a lost 原因(となる) to 勝利,勝つ the 2012 首相 League.
‘No, it’s not true,’ laughs Foden.
‘I was 現実に behind that goal in the (人が)群がる with my mum. At the end we were on the pitch with everybody else.
‘It was the biggest thing to happen in the club’s history. Without that Aguero goal we don’t go on and 達成する what we have 達成するd today.
‘So many thanks to Sergio Aguero for that…’
City have won six more 首相 League 肩書を与えるs since that day and Foden has been 伴う/関わるd in five of them. This season has perhaps been his best, one that has seen him take steps 今後s ーに関して/ーの点でs of his 影響(力). He has 得点する/非難する/20d 22 goals.
More 広範囲にわたって, Foden understands and embraces what he stands for. The City Football Group 構成するs thirteen clubs across the globe. Foden, though, is one of their own, as they say, and others have followed closely behind.
Foden's rise from the 学院 階級s is an inspiration to others に引き続いて in his footsteps
David Silva (left) has been 述べるd as an important 影響(力) and 役割 model on young Foden
Rico 吊りくさび, a 19-year-old defender, was born in Bury and has an England cap. The midfielder Cole Palmer was born in Wythenshawe and also plays for England.
‘I know how important it is,’ nods Foden.
‘My story is nice isn’t it? Every age group.
‘I am so happy for myself, the club and the younger players in the 学院.
‘It probably does all mean a little bit more to me and yeah there has been 圧力.
‘I had to become an adult at a very young age. I had to listen to a lot of people 説 a lot of different things. He’s not playing enough. He should go on 貸付金.
‘I mean I had Kevin and David [Silva] in 前線 of me 支援する then. I knew I didn’t deserve to play.
‘But now I want to be a 役割 model for this 学院 and younger kids in my area. I tell them to never stop loving football. Because if you love it you will never be afraid of the hard work.
‘Hopefully young players look at me and think: “If Phil did it then why can’t I do it?”’
For Foden, Silva was the one on the pedestal. ‘I just loved him,’ he says. ‘What a player.’
ーに関して/ーの点でs of the guiding 影響(力), that (機の)カム from the captain. ‘It was scary 存在 moved to the first team dressing room but Vinny [Kompany] put his arm 一連の会議、交渉/完成する me. I was shy but he made it 平易な.’
Foden (機の)カム of age under the tutelage of then-Man City captain Vincent Kompany (pictured in 2019)
Although not 責任がある his 首相 League-winning goal, Foden also learned a lot from Sergio Aguero
But Foden 選ぶd not to take the Argentine's shirt, 予定 to his 忠義 to his number 47 jersey