Manchester City’s party to celebrate their title win last April was a haphazard affair thrown together by Vincent Kompany in a Hale pub because no one was realistically expecting it to occur that particular Sunday.
Manchester United’s defeat at home by West Brom took most by surprise, so it was an impromptu event and not every member of the squad could attend. But none had a better excuse than Phil Foden.
Kompany called him, told him the venue and reiterated the fact that, as he was still six weeks short of his 18th birthday, he should not drink alcohol. But Foden was apologetic. He could not make it. ‘I’m going night fishing in Stoke with my dad,’ he told his captain.
It was a perfect response. Those who have watched Foden since the age of eight, when he joined Manchester City, say there will be plenty of time for future celebrations. There is no need to rush.
But even Foden has the capacity to surprise them. Now 18 and winner of the Golden Ball at the Under-17 World Cup which England won in India last autumn, Foden is already pushing for a first-team place against Huddersfield on Sunday, sooner than even his admirers expected.
Pre-season fixtures with City in the USA and a sparkling performance in the Community Shield have him knocking on the door of the first team at a club with possibly the best midfield depth in the world.
Football history is full of over-praised teenagers who have shone brightly and burned out quickly but there has not been as much confident talk about a young English player since a 16-year-old Wayne Rooney emerged.
Take Pep Guardiola’s assessment. Not one for hyperbole, discussing Foden on Friday and asked to compare his own experiences as an 18-year-old, it was light-heartedly suggested maybe Foden was a better player.
‘By far!’ said Guardiola. He did then qualify his approval. ‘I’m better holding midfield than him, he’s better attacking midfield than me.’
Still, the point was made. Everyone at City believes in Foden. England manager Gareth Southgate does too, though September would be too early to thrust him into the exposing spotlight of the senior team.
But Foden can be the ultimate proof that City’s expensively constructed academy is not mere window dressing and that home-grown stars are genuinely a foundation block for Sheik Mansour’s club.
Having a lad from a council estate in Stockport, whose mum Claire is a massive City fan (his father, Phil Snr, did follow United) retains a local link to the club. His roots, like Rooney in Croxteth, are humble.
‘I grew up in a rough town and all I ever knew was playing in the streets,’ he said over the summer when filming for his boot sponsors. His City career provided for a private education at St Bede’s and he and his family have moved to the suburb of Bramhall.
His first brush with widespread global recognition came with that Under-17 World Cup win, being voted the best player of the tournament (Cesc Fabregas is a previous winner) and scoring twice in the final. But ever since he first played in international tournaments at the age of 11, Real Madrid and Barcelona have monitored him, though there was never a chance of leaving City.
Not with his mum’s allegiance. That and the fact that the invitation from former scout Terry John to join City came while he was still at primary school means his allegiance runs deep. He was a ball boy the day City won the title in 2012 with that last-gasp Sergio Aguero goal.
After the U17 World Cup win, the club, his parents and his legal representative Richard Green at 1810 Sports, mapped out his trajectory for the next 18 months.
While the likes of Harry Kane have benefited from multiple loans to different clubs, it was felt the experience of training under Guardiola and with players such as Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva would be better than games in the Championship, as did starts in the Champions League and the League Cup semi-final.
He was on the bench for the Manchester derby to gain experience and got on at the end of the League Cup final win against Arsenal. In all, he played 10 games.
But the decision not to go out on loan was as much because his style, that of a diminutive midfielder with incisive passing, could not be nurtured better than under Guardiola.
Few have a better record for promoting teenagers. When he started at Barcelona, 10 years ago, before he was established as an iconic manager, Guardiola took a huge risk in immediately promoting Sergio Busquets and Pedro, now at Chelsea, both 20 and completely unheralded, from the B team and into the first team.
Guardiola learned from his mentor, Johan Cruyff, who became Barca coach in 1988. He was told there was an excellent teenager progressing through the ranks.
Cruyff recalled: ‘People said to me, “Oh, he’s one of the best”. So [over the next year] I looked for him in the reserves but he didn’t play in the reserves. So then I looked at the first youth team and he didn’t play in that team. And eventually I found him in the third youth team.
‘So I said to the coaches, “You said he was the best one!” And they said, “Yeah, but physically...” I said, “Put him there [in the reserves]. He will grow. Don’t worry, everybody grows”. And they said, “Yeah, but we will lose”. I said, “If we lose, we lose. We need to create players”. And he did very well.’
Guardiola was that player and Foden has similarities. This is not the typical tough-tackling English midfielder. He looks slight and, with a May 28 birthday, he is young for his age group and in the City academy teams he was never promoted to an older group — referred to as ‘playing up’ by coaches.
Usually the best prodigies ‘play up’ a year or two, so U12s play with U14s. Not Foden though and at times it worried him that he was lagging behind. It took the calming words of Mark Allen, City’s former academy director, to reassure him. The arrival of Guardiola, whose genuine interest in the academy and his own ideas, dovetailed perfectly with the academy’s approach.
‘Cruyff’s focus was always the quality,’ recalled Guardiola of his promotion to the first team.
‘It doesn’t matter the weight and the size. In terms of quality and technique, Cruyff had a lot of courage to say: “Ok, you play”.
‘Other managers at Barcelona at that time looked more for overall physicality, [players that were] just strong; technique doesn’t matter. It depends on the manager.
‘But Phil is strong. He looks like tiny, skinny. But he is strong. He is a box-to-box player in that he runs a lot. And this season he is stronger than last season. So give him time. In one or two or three seasons he will be stronger than now. He will grow. That will not be a problem. That’s why the focus first is teaching the technique, as he will grow and take power and after it will be easy for him. But he has quality to play with us, that is no doubt.’
Guardiola is committed to his cause and City did not sign in his position in the summer because of that. But maybe super clubs are now so chock full of superstars that the window of opportunity for teen prodigies grows ever smaller?
‘It can be one of the reasons why, the money, the important games,’ says Guardiola, though he does not agree that is the main thing holding back good youngsters at English clubs. ‘The problem is these guys play in the competition [the Premier League U23 league] where they don’t compete with the real competition. That is the real problem.
‘But in the case of Phil Foden it’s very different. We know him very well. He was with us last season, he is part of the group. Now he is part of the team. When I believe he has to play, he plays. I’m so delighted the way he trains every single day, the way he improves and he has the same chances like the other guys.
‘But players who come from the academy, the problem to settle immediately in the first team, it’s not easy. But that is not the case with Phil. I put him in Champions League or Community Shield final or whatever stage. He can do it. We trust him a lot.’
City players tease Foden that he is ‘Pep’s lad’, so affectionate is he about the young man in his charge. But he can be tough on him too. In the International Champions Cup match against Liverpool in New Jersey last month, Guardiola noticed that Foden was trying to force his game.
‘Don’t do that,’ Guardiola told him afterwards. ‘Do what you normally do.’ What he normally does is those defence-splitting balls you saw in the Community Shield. It was almost as if Guardiola was telling him to trust the process and the glory will come.
His parents and five siblings help keep Foden grounded. His summer holiday was a fishing trip to northern Spain with his dad and brothers, where landing an enormous carp was the highlight.
And his representatives will not sign him up to commercial endorsements, other than the long-term Nike boot deal, as it is believed his time off is better spent resting and preparing. Or even night fishing with his dad.