SOME footballers like to turn their heads away from history, the challenges it presents and the pressure it brings. Phil Foden doesn't think that way. He wants to walk towards it.
For Foden and Manchester City, a shot at a Champions League defence and successive Trebles
has gone, ground into the dirt by Real Madrid's refusal to buckle during an epic Etihad night on Wednesday. But at City, when one
door closes there is always another one to walk through. And for Foden and his team-mates a reminder of what remains possible over the next five weeks is writ large on the wall every time they lace up their boots.
'We understand it here,' Foden says. 'We know that if we win the
Premier League this time, we will have done something new. It's something we have our eyes on.
'Every time we put our boots on at the training ground that saying is there on the wall. It says, "Nobody has won four Premier Leagues in a row? yet". We want to put ourselves in history. Every
day I sit and look at that slogan and I think, "Why not?"' The last time Foden sat down with Mail Sport was almost five
years ago. He was 18 and the football world was talking about
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why City manager Pep Guardiola did not play him more or at least send him out on loan.
Foden himself, just 18 months after his first-team debut, was less preoccupied with that. Beset by imposter syndrome ? a former City ball boy in a changing room full of world stars ? 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 back then. Probably the most talented kid in England but a kid just the same. That day he agreed to jump into a ball pit 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 United. Real at the Bernabeu. The quality of the opposition doesn't matter.
Foden gets nervous before some games. 'Butterflies 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.'
Foden is still a young man. He is 24 next month. But as a sportsman, he is all grown up. He is the favourite to win this season's Player of the Year honours and Gareth Southgate will rely on him when England get to Germany for the Euros. Foden, Bellingham, Saka, Kane. No wonder the rest of Europe is nervous.
So we see him differently now. The quest ions have been answered. They are being answered. Guardiola was right all along. Who would have thought
it? 'It's been hard sometimes, you know, being 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.
'It was a mountain to climb to even reach the first team. In my head I just wanted to make one appearance for this club and be able to say that I had done it.
'But once I did that I thought, "No I can actually play here. I can handle the standard". Now I am at that stage where I feel like I am a key player in the team. I feel very comfortable with that.'
THE house where Foden grew up stands on a street corner a beefy free-kick away from Stockport County's Edgeley Park. It is to this house that Foden returned holding a business 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.
John had watched Foden dribble a ball round some cones
and reckoned the kid had something.
As we talk and then do some filming for Mail Sport's social media channels at City's training ground this week, John stands quietly in the corner. He is Foden's business manager 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 journey. Luckily he came in that day to school. Had he not, I don't know where I would be right 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 became famous.
'I have always tried to keep down to earth and the people I have around me haven't changed. I have a small group and that's the way I like it.'
Foden's journey through the City age groups was rapid. It
began seven miles from home at the club's old Platt Lane facility, close to Manchester's famous curry mile in Rusholme. It is 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 craft.
'I just wanted to have a ball at my feet. Then I was happy. Playing with older boys helped me handle the ball in tight areas and use my physicality. When I eventually reached the first team, it was like being a kid again. You know, I was back to being the smallest. I remembered everything I had been taught as a kid and simply transferred it into the first team. It felt just the same.'
Once the talent was established and the road to prominence mapped out, it was on to the City Football Academy, the sprawling 16-pitch facility across the dual 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 does ? while Sergio Aguero and Yaya Toure lurk nearby. At 16 years old, he is a boy to their man in every conceivable way.
'That photo makes me very proud,' Foden says. 'Sharing that changing room was a real big moment. I remember going into the Rondo (where a player in the middle of a circle tries to intercept passes made from one side 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 the middle for about 10 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 brief spell as a City ball boy. It says he was the one who threw the ball back for the corner that led to Edin Dzeko's equaliser against QPR as City rescued a lost cause to win the 2012 Premier League title.
'No, it's not true,' laughs Foden. 'I was behind that goal in the
crowd 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 achieve what we have achieved. So many thanks to Sergio Aguero for that.'
City have won six more Premier League titles since that day and Foden has been involved in five of them. This season has perhaps
been his best, one that has seen him take steps forward in terms of his influence. He has scored 22 goals.
More widely, Foden understands and embraces what he stands for. The City Football Group comprises 13 clubs across the globe. Foden, though, is one of their own, as they say, and others have followed closely behind.
Rico Lewis, a 19-year-old defender, was born in Bury and has an England cap. Midfielder Cole Palmer was born in Wythenshawe and also plays for England. Sold to Chelsea last summer, he will face Foden at Wembley in the FA Cup semi-final today.
'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 academy. It probably does all mean a little bit more to me and, yeah, there has been pressure.
'I had to become an adult at a very young age. I had to listen to a lot of people saying a lot of different things. "He's not playing enough. He should go on loan". I mean, I had Kevin and David Silva in front of me back then. I knew I didn't deserve to play.
'But now I want to be a role model for this academy 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.' In terms of the guiding influence, that came from the captain. 'It was scary being moved to the first-team dressing room but Vinny (Kompany) put his arm round me. I was shy but he made it easy.'
And then there was Aguero, the hero of 2012. When he left in 2021, Foden was offered his No 10 shirt but turned it down. He already had one he liked. 'Being a young player, you don't have many
options when it comes to what you can have on your shirt,' explains Foden. 'I had a few numbers sent to me and none of them really meant anything to me apart from that one, the 47.
'That was the age my grandad was when he died. I was young when we lost him. I remember going to Wales with him and on a few other trips. My dad says he loved playing football with me.
'I asked my dad if he would be happy if I wore that number. He said it would be amazing so I took the shirt number and I have loved it ever since. I have it tattooed on me now and it's a shirt I don't ever see changing. It's nice to make your own legacy. It's a strange number nobody else will go for, so hopefully in years to come when I have finished, 47 at City will be remembered for Phil Foden.'
FODEN was on the sofa at home watching title rivals Liverpool and Arsenal falter last Sunday
afternoon. A day earlier, City had beaten Luton 5-1 at home. They sit top of the league again.
'I was celebrating a little bit,' he smiles a little bashfully. 'But nothing over the top. Nothing changes. We just need to win every game.'
Guardiola's City have set new standards in English football. Foden and his team-mates have made the abnormal normal. Teams did not always have to be almost perfect to win the title but they do now.
'Somehow we just click into this gear at this time of year,' Foden says. 'Hopefully we can show our best now as the next three games are cup finals. I think they will decide the season.' Foden is
speaking prior to Wednesday's Champions League quarter-final second leg against Real. City should have won but didn't. It happens in football.
Foden's penalty in the shootout struck the back of the net like a missile. A week earlier, he had done likewise from open play in
Spain. Big impacts.
His goal in the Bernabeu last week already has a place in his mind as one of his best while today's challenge at Wembley excites him equally.
'The FA Cup is really special to me,' he says. 'When I was a kid I loved it. It's one that I always want to win a lot. The final against Man United last season was
amazing.' The Manchester rivalry has been tilted heavily one way for all of Foden's time in the City team. Liverpool have been the regular challengers.
'It's a shame that Jurgen Klopp is leaving,' is Foden's surprising take on that. 'He's been brilliant. To face his team isn't nice but he is good for the game. He has changed Liverpool and it will be sad to see him go. I always want to play against the best.'
Foden should get that chance this summer with England. He was part of the squad who came close to winning the 2020 version of the Euros even though a freak injury ruled him out of the final against Italy at Wembley.
'That was just crazy,' he says, shaking his head. 'I was walking in after training the day before the final. Someone just passed me the ball. I tried to control it by putting one leg behind the other like this, just a trick, and my standing leg, well I heard a crack and I knew straight away. I couldn't walk. It was devastating. I
remember Gareth speaking to me and I just couldn't help crying. I couldn't even get any words out. I was so upset.
'I have learned a lesson from that. I try to not do so much after training now. The coaches will probably tell you I am lying. But that really woke me up.'
Foden won't be the only young star in Southgate's squad. Another one stands out now: Jude Bellingham, the 20-year-old darling of Real. 'I have never seen anyone so mature for his age,' says Foden. 'I feel he's got a gift from God with his physique. We really need him at his best.'
Before all that there is much to achieve. No Treble but maybe a Double. Foden looks back on last year's celebrations as some of the best days of his life. 'In a way it was perfect it rained,' he laughs.
'Manchester rain.'
Driven on by a manager who believes in him. Foden will be front and centre between now and the season's end. I put it to him that Guardiola must be exhausting to play for. 'No, it's the total opposite,' he explains. 'It's
so enjoyable. You look at what he's won and you would think he may be tired, but every season he is the same. You can't help but rise to it.'
So on he will go. Five weeks left. So much to play for. And what about the individual stuff? Two Player of the Year awards will be handed out soon. One by the PFA and one by the Football Writers' Association. Do they matter?
'I hope I am up there in the conversation,' he says. 'I am not gonna lie. I want to be one of the best Premier League players this season. I think I have the ability.'
Foden's is coy about where his own PFA vote has gone but says team-mate Rodri should also be a contender. 'He has no weaknesses,' he says. If that's not a very glamorous call then maybe it's appropriate. It's not a world Foden really wants to live in.
Who's the most famous person he has met? He can't remember. How about the one moment he realised that the kid who grew up playing football on a car park opposite a betting shop in Stockport had finally made it?
'I would go back there, and I would be walking on the streets and people would come up asking for photos,' says Foden slowly. 'I'd think it was strange because some of the people who were coming over, well, I knew them from back when I was young.
'So for that to be happening made me realise things had changed. Things were gonna be different from then on?'
