Manchester City’s vision realised in new academy

Manchester, United Kingdom: Manchester City have paid such extraordinary attention to detail with their magnificent new £150 million (Dh865 million) City Football Academy (CFA) that sleep experts were called in to design the players’ bedrooms, selecting wallpaper with light circular patterns.

“It’s very soothing,” said Brian Marwood, the academy director who has dedicated six years to making sure the club’s training and player development centre is as close to perfection as possible.

City have left nothing to chance in the pursuit of excellence. Ambition is everywhere. On what Marwood calls “Patrick’s pitch”, Vieira continues moulding his Elite Development Squad as the club work towards a target of a first team including “four to six” home-grown players. Vieira himself continues to be nurtured as a future manager.

Inside, there is a huge photograph of Sergio Aguero covered with the iconic “93:20” time of his title-sealing goal against Queens Park Rangers in 2012. “We want players constantly reminded of the great moments,” Marwood said. “When we talk to players about coming here, we say: ‘Come and be part of something special. Come and be part of creating history’.”

The CFA is unashamedly aspirational. One room houses computers where players can analyse their performances, and study their next opponents.

“We made the windows of the room large so that any other player walking past can see ‘he’s in there, I should be too’,” Marwood said. “The younger ones can see the first team, sense them. We want them to think: ‘I want to be next to Vincent Kompany’. It’s aspirational.”

Clear message

City opened the CFA on Tuesday and are so proud of the facility they want to get the message out. Although more than 2,000 trees were planted to screen against wind and photographers. “If [coach] Manuel [Pellegrini] wants to work away from prying eyes, we have an enclosed pitch,” Marwood said.

The indoor pitch has a high ceiling so “Fifa would allow us to play a game here”. There are rooms for yoga, Pilates, cryotherapy and a hypoxic chamber with treadmills where a player can tap “Rio in July” into the computer and the room heats to the required temperature.

City even looked at sealing the indoor pitch so they could replicate conditions in Moscow in winter or Melbourne on a pre-season tour, “but the cost was prohibitive”, Marwood said.

In the recruitment room, they also discuss targets for their other clubs. “This is the central fulcrum, the heart of Manchester City, New York City and Melbourne City,” Marwood said, understandably proud of the vision becoming reality.

Many sceptics had mocked City. “We’ve had a vision but people just laughed at us, dismissed us, wrote us off, knocked us down. People said: ‘Foreign owners, they decimate the game.’

“People talked about us ‘ruining’ English football. Have I been hurt? Yes I have. They’ve been grossly unfair but it’s borne out of ignorance. I’d like people now to come and see what we’ve done six years on. I’d like them to actually understand what we’re about, what we’ve done to the local economy, how we’ve regenerated east Manchester, how we’ve improved unemployment, how we’ve grown the economy locally because 80 per cent of the work force has come from within the Manchester area and 70 per cent of the material used on site has come from the local area.”

The club’s Abu Dhabi owners have been crucial to the project.

“We have fantastic owners, people who want to invest not just in a football club but in a city,” Marwood said, referencing the group’s commitment to invest in local housing. “They’ve never had the credit they deserve. We tend to see [chairman] Khaldoon [Al Mubarak], who has his finger on the pulse. He knows everything that’s happening at this club. He’s been so supportive. Amazing guy. They [the owners] have had a huge amount of enjoyment out of what’s happened.”

City say they are budgeting for profit this year. When the club was first taken over, mistakes were made from the handling of the pursuit of Kaka to problems with characters such as Carlos Tevez and Mario Balotelli. “That type of soap opera has ended,” insisted Marwood.

Things are smoother now with a collection of low-maintenance, high-yield players and a plan to bring more quality through the ranks.

“It was always going to be a bumpy ride early on here because we were taking the club from one level to another. We were also taking the fans on a journey. Their journey beforehand hadn’t been particularly pretty. They always felt like jilted brides, getting to the altar and never getting married. Now there’s a greater trust and an understanding about what we’re doing. They can see it, touch it, feel it.

“We’ve always had an ambition that at least four to six players in the team would come through this academy. We are working every day to achieve that.” Marwood walked past a room saying “manager’s changing area”. There is certainly no intention of changing the manager. The club back Manuel Pellegrini “absolutely”, Marwood emphasised.

“This is a guy who has great experience. He’s very measured, very calm. He’s not someone who goes and looks for confrontation but he’s not frightened of confrontation. He has got enormous respect here from everybody at the club.

Respected coach

“Everybody I speak to outside this club has a respect for Manuel. To come in and win two trophies in his first year is an amazing achievement. The brand of football, scoring over 150 goals, was incredible.”

City do not fear losing class acts such as Sergio Aguero, a player hungry for Champions League glory. “You’ll always get clubs who will want the best players in the world and Sergio’s among the best players in the world. But you only have to look at Sergio’s performances to see he’s enjoying life at City.

“Sergio appreciates the team. He doesn’t look at football and say ‘this is about me’. He’s a very humble guy. He just wants to improve and become the best he can possibly be. He’s very settled here. He lives for his football. His game has gone to another level this year.

“He’s even better than when he came and he was very good then. There was a deep intake of breath when we brought him here because it was a lot of money but he’s provided incredible value.”

Although there is frustration over Yaya Toure’s birthday cake ‘moment’, whipped up by his agent, City feel the midfielder is also totally committed to the cause. “He’s fine, absolutely,” Marwood said. “We had that little bit of shenanigans in the summer. Unfortunately, he had the death of his brother [Ibrahim] that unsettled him a lot.

“You’re always going to have those moments, whether it’s Yaya or Joe Hart getting left out. The important thing is the group is strong, bring them back in and put an arm around them. What we had in the past was we’d have a Mario moment or a Carlos moment, and they were completely outside of the group. That’s not helpful.”

City want to retain and reward excellence. That is also what the CFA is all about. “We are just the current custodians of this operation,” said Marwood.

— The Telegraph Group Limited. London, 2014