London: Sergio Aguero has revealed that Pep Guardiola switched off the WiFi at Manchester City’s training ground after the manager discovered one of his players using his mobile phone while he was having a massage.
Guardiola is eager for his players to communicate with each other face-to-face and, in an effort to help foster team spirit, he took the unusual step earlier this season of blocking the internet in some areas of the club’s pounds 200 million (Dh896 million) City Football Academy.
Now Aguero, the City striker, has lifted the lid on the incident that triggered Guardiola’s decision to turn off the WiFi in the dressing room, massage room and pool area at the academy, which also has no 3G or 4G access in the lower ground areas where most of the first team’s facilities are housed.
“It seems that one time, he -entered the massage rooms and saw one of my teammates, I don’t know who it was, relaxing with his phone and, I don’t know, maybe he did not like it,” Aguero said. “From then, he cut the internet. ‘What happened? We don’t have the internet here’, I said.
“In the dressing room, where everything is all closed [off], there is no signal. Therefore one can only use the WiFi. I said: ‘Is the WiFi broken? What happened?’ I am preparing the orange juice, and they [teammates] were asking if the internet was working. ‘I think it’s broken,’ I said.
“He had cut the internet. In the changing room, massage room and pool we don’t have the internet. Upstairs there is a little bit of 3G.”
Aguero emerged unscathed from Argentina’s 1-0 World Cup qualifying defeat by Paraguay in Cordoba on Tuesday, when the striker missed a penalty, despite suffering an injury scare last week.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2016
