Manchester: It is mid-August and there are steel grey skies over central Manchester. Underneath them, the most expensive defender in the history of English football deals with the inevitable questions over his acclimatisation to the weather in the North West — and, more importantly, whether he will be weighed down by that astonishing £32 million (Dh196 million) price tag.
“You kind of deal it in this way,” Eliaquim Mangala says. “The price was not set by me and it’s something you don’t pay attention to. It is something the fans and press might talk about but I remove myself from those thoughts.
“And if you can’t live with that sort of pressure, if it does bring any pressure, football is not the job for you. You should be staying at home and doing another type of job. When you are a kid you want to grow up to be a professional footballer. You have certain dreams, like playing in the Premier League or playing in the Champions League, but you never think: ‘One day I will be the most expensive defender in England.’”
But the 23-year-old is just that, with the fee City paid to sign Mangala from Porto beating the previous record of £30 million met by Manchester United to sign Rio Ferdinand from Leeds United, and comfortably eclipsing the £27 million United agreed to sign Luke Shaw from Southampton. City have, undoubtedly, paid a premium for a central defender, partly because there is a Europe-wide dearth of talent in that role. Mangala is still relatively raw but given his power, athleticism and aggression, he can be the ideal old-fashioned ‘stopper’ to slot in alongside Vincent Kompany. It may also help that despite being born in Colombes, France, Mangala spent much of his childhood in Belgium. Not that he has been given any guarantees by City — who started their title defence away to Newcastle United on Sunday — or manager Manuel Pellegrini that he will go straight into the first team when he is match-fit.
‘Real bonus’
“Guarantees don’t really exist in football,” Mangala says. “You can only put 11 players in the side and everybody in the squad wants to play. The most important thing is that when you do get your chance to play then play well and cement your place.” Mangala was speaking before being presented — along with the other new signings including his former Porto team-mate Fernando — to 5,000 supporters at the club’s City Live event. He is respectful not just of Kompany but also Martin Demichelis who, of course, played in last month’s World Cup final for Argentina, alongside his club team-mate Pablo Zabaleta.
“It’s a real bonus,” he says of being alongside such seasoned defenders. “You talk about Vincent but there is also Martin Demichelis. He’s just had a great World Cup and has played at the highest level in Germany with Bayern Munich. There is also Vincent, who is captain of the club and Belgium and has played at the top level for a long time. As a young player it is a great opportunity to rub shoulders with these players and for my progression and evolution as a player it is great to learn from these guys.”
Mangala, who was in France’s squad in Brazil, was monitored by United and Chelsea, although he is keen to clarify what he meant when he was quoted, before the World Cup, suggesting he would prefer a move to Stamford Bridge.
“It was a French TV programme and it was right at the end. It was a 50/50 question, the guy said to me: ‘Manchester or London?’ It was a question about cities rather than anything to do with football. I said I would prefer not to answer but he said I had to answer. It was nothing to do with football but because it was the capital and because it was a big city I just happened to say London.”
City almost struck an agreement to sign both Mangala and Fernando in the January window and, in truth, were always the strong front-runners this summer.
‘Fantastic club’
“They were the club that I had conversations with the coach and the sporting director [Txiki Begiristain]. They were the only club I had conversations with at that level,” Mangala says. “Then there were lots of reasons: the chance to play alongside other quality players, from a career development point of view and to progress as an individual player. They are a fantastic club with loads of potential to win more trophies. In the last three seasons they have won the title twice.
“What has struck me since I’ve started at Manchester City, focusing on the club rather than anything else, is that there is a real positive pressure about the place. There is a feeling that there are some really big targets this season.”
So what are the objectives?
“Obviously the first target as current champions is to hold on to that title. Then, of course, the Champions League. But when you are somewhere like City, every match you go into and every competition that you enter, you go in with a mind of winning it.”
But the Champions League is, undoubtedly, a growing priority. “It has got to be a real target for us and I think the overall grand scheme and project of Manchester City has always been ultimately to win the Champions League,” Mangala admits.
Given his physique and appetite for physical football he would appear ideal for the Premier League. “I knew myself it is a lot more physical, more intense. Each team can beat anyone else, I think that aspect is different from Portugal,” Mangala says.
He is not so enamoured with those angry skies above Manchester, though. “The weather isn’t nice!” Mangala shrugs. And with that it starts to rain and he breaks into English. “It’s normal.”
