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“Phil Foden, he’s one of us,” the Etihad Stadium regularly sings. The former Manchester City prodigy, once affectionately nicknamed ‘the Stockport Iniesta’, a nod to the Barcelona legend, has a superstar in his own right.
Last summer, when Kevin De Bruyne limped out of the Champions League final, it was Foden who stepped into the breach. On the biggest of all stages, the 23-year-old put in an assured performance to get City over the line, and beat Inter Milan 1-0 to secure the club’s status as Champions of Europe for the first time.
It was a historic treble for the Blues, who had won the Premier League and FA Cup just weeks earlier. This season, he has once again spearheaded the club’s quest for glory, scoring 11 goals and recording 8 assists in all competitions.
He has been meteoric for Foden since making his debut for the club in a Champions League match against Feyenoord in November 2017.
Philip Walter Foden was born on May 28, 2000 to parents Phil Foden Snr and Claire Rowlands. He is one of five siblings: Callum, who is 3 years older, and younger siblings Kenzi, Lois, and Avayah.
His circle of family and friends knew him as Ronnie, after his grandmother recommended him as a nickname due to the confusion of sharing his own father’s name.
Phil Snr and Callum were actually United fans. However, Claire and the rest of his family are City fans, with Phil quickly adopting his mum’s love of the Blues.
The family lived on a terrace on Grenville Street in Edgeley, in downtown Stockport, a short walk from the grounds of Edgeley Park in Stockport County. Phil spent his hours playing football in a nearby parking lot.
Mum Claire said he was “the cheapest kid ever” and told The Daily Telegraph that his formative years: “No games, no toys, nothing, just a football. “
Phil went to Bridgehall Primary School, located in the middle of a huge housing estate across the railroad track from Edgeley in neighbouring Adswood.
It was there he first came to the attention of his beloved Blues, when the head of City’s junior academy Terry John put on an event at the school. Foden said in 2022: “They say ‘things happen for a reason’ and I believe in that because I wasn’t even meant to train that day.
“They were training the under-6s and I think I might have only been four at the time and they asked the school if they had anyone else who could play and my PE teacher said ‘yeah we have this little guy who is pretty good.’ So they brought me out for individual training and then gave me a card to give to my parents and I have been there ever since!”
Foden’s former manager, Steve Eyre, said he was a brilliant person in developing City’s youngsters. “Phil was no secret. You can walk across the Dome from Platt Lane at 4 to see a hundred kids get educated and see it right away, in the crowd,” Steve said.
“The first time I saw him he was like a beacon,” he went on. “He was something different, and still is now, in the Premier League. There were loads of kids with enthusiasm but there was just something a bit special about Phil. I think he’s the best young player that I’ve ever seen with the ball at his feet. And I said that when he was ten.”
City paired Foden with local youth club Reddish Vulcans, to give him an insight into competitive football from an early age, and made him a member of their conquering youth team.
His coach there, Steve Williams, said: “At six, seven or eight years old, you play unlike kids who have never played football before, and a smart player can stand out. But Phil stood out against the most productive players: we won everything.
“Against the more sensible young clubs of Liverpool, who attracted teenagers from Everton and Liverpool, and against local clubs like Fletcher Moss, who had young United players like Marcus Rashford, Phil was the most productive player on the pitch, and that was in each and every game. He played. “
But Phil’s time at the Vulcans was short and sweet, and at the age of 8 he was recruited through City’s academy. Getting him was a big coup for City at the time. United and Liverpool were also looking for him, but City had already captured the cross from him. and inspired his family circle, to the point that he did not even visit other academies.
Foden spent one year at Stockport Academy, in Cheadle Heath, just a short walk from Edgeley. However, after Year 7, he left and was enrolled at the prestigious St Bede’s College.
The city runs a program that gives all its young academy aspirants the opportunity to earn scholarships at the historic private Catholic school in the Whalley Range, where annual fees range from £8,000 to £11,000 a year.
Like the other students, he had to pass a frontal exam but, once a student, together with other members of the city’s academy, including Jadon Sancho, he was given a personalized program that allowed him to examine the essential subjects and decide on the topics , as well as ensuring that time is set aside for training.
He was named on the bench for a Champions League game against Celtic in December 2016. However, his real footballing breakthrough came the following year when he first helped England win the Under-17s World Cup in the summer of 2017. He won the ‘Golden Ball’ award for the best player and was named as the BBC’s Young Sports Personality of the Year.
In November, he came off the bench against Feyenoord for his professional debut. He took team number 47 in honor of his grandfather Walter, who was 47 when he died. Now he wears the number and has it tattooed on his neck.
In 2018 he became the youngest recipient of a Premier League winner’s medal. In 2019, he won a second Premier League and became the club’s youngest-ever goalscorer in the UEFA Champions League, and is the youngest English player to both start a match and score in the knockout stages of the competition.
It was during this time that Pep Guardiola described him as “the most talented player I’ve ever seen as a footballer or as a player”, something that comes from the guy who oversaw Lionel Messi’s rise at Barcelona. In 2021 and 2022, Foden was named Premier League Young Player of the Season and PFA Young Player of the Year.
He now has 31 caps for England. But his overseas career got off to an unfortunate start when in September 2020, after making his debut against Iceland, he and teammate Mason Greenwood were sent home.
Foden admitted breaching Covid restrictions in place at the time after allegations the couple had invited women back to the team hotel.
The player issued a ‘full apology’, saying he had made a ‘poor decision’ and would ‘learn a valuable lesson from this error in judgment.’
However, he was a key component of the team that reached the Euro final in 2021 and the quarterfinals of the 2022 World Cup.
Off the field in January 2019, Foden’s life changed even more when, at the age of 18, he became a father for the first time after his longtime girlfriend, Rebecca Cooke, gave birth to their son Ronnie.
“I was there for the birth. I left the room, shed a small tear and then came back as if nothing had happened,” Foden told City’s website afterwards.
“I’m not one for crying in front of people. I like to be on my own, but I was there in the room, watched it happen and it was a special moment. Your life changes. There’s no free time.” However, he said he had ‘enjoyed every minute of it.’
He told Esquire, whose cover he appeared on in 2022, that he believes being a father is helping him stay “focused. “
“There’s a lot going on for a young footballer like me,” he said. “The hardest part is going to bed early and being able to exercise the next day when there are all those distractions. I think that’s where determination comes in. “
Ronnie, who is now five years old, has become a star in his own right. Foden takes him to the pitch to celebrate trophies, adding after last year’s hat-trick when he took selfies with Erling Haaland and sat on his father’s shoulders as they sang. the winner of the “Rodri’s On Fire” setting with Gala. hit’s ’90s song “Freed from Desire. “
The family has created their own dedicated Instagram account that has 4 million followers. Phil and Rebecca now also have a second child, a daughter born in July 2021.
In addition to fatherhood and football, Foden’s other love in life is fishing. He missed the city’s name celebrations in 2018 due to a fishing arrangement previously arranged with his father.
He also posts photographs of some of his impressive catches, the largest of which to date is a 130-pound catfish. “I was probably six or seven years old and my dad had a fishing rod that belonged to him and he told me we deserved to go through, check it out,” he told the city’s website.
“I fell in love with it and we ended up going every weekend. It’s still my first take. It wasn’t big, I was just learning, but that’s the thrill of when you take one for the first time.
“I think that’s the buzz that makes you want to go again, but it’s also a chance to chill and relax and to spend time with my dad. I think it’s really good after games when you have to rest your legs and I just find it enjoyable.” His partner Rebecca has also revealed he loves collecting the Panini football stickers.
Following his rise to stardom, Foden, who signed a bumper new contract worth a reported 200,000 a week in 2022, left Stockport.
He and his wife moved into a mansion, estimated at around £2. 85 million, in Prestbury, in Cheshire’s ‘Golden Triangle’, popular with football and showbiz stars. Although it is also said that he bought his parents a closed space with six beds. close, £3 million.
However, on several occasions he photographed and filmed a party with young people near where he grew up, where there is now a mural of him painted on a wall.
“I have a circle of relatives near Stockport, so sometimes I stop there and the kids are surprised to see me. It’s kind of weird because I was one of those kids and I was just like them,” he said. .
“They look at you, so it’s just to give something back because I used to play it when I was a kid. It’s smart to play with them and see a smile on their faces. I just need to be a smart role-playing style for them.
In December last year, Foden, now 23, announced that he had passed his driving test and proudly posed with his certificate. When an interviewer asked him why he hadn’t done it before, he replied, “I never thought I needed to. “, do you know what I mean? It’s probably laziness to be honest. “
On the pitch, in addition to the hat-trick, Foden helped City win the UEFA Super Cup and the Club World Cup in December. It was Foden’s 14th major honour, leading some pundits to hope he could eventually eclipse Ryan Giggs and the most decorated British footballer of all time.
According to many, it is also important for England’s chances of winning this summer’s European Championship, as the Three Lions aim to claim their first trophy since the 1966 World Cup.