The City midfielder is being hailed as the best player in the Premier League while his former academy team-mate is flopping on loan back at Dortmund
When Pep Guardiola told a press conference in Japan in 2019 that Phil Foden was the most talented player he had ever seen, many eyebrows were raised. Foden was 19 at the time and had only started three Premier League games. Given all the players Guardiola had worked with, including Andres Iniesta, Lionel Messi and Kevin De Bruyne, it seemed like an odd statement to make, not to mention a huge burden for the teenager to carry. But it all makes sense now.
Not for the first time, Guardiola has been proven right. Foden has entered a new level of greatness in the aftermath of the Manchester derby which he dominated to a ludicrous extent, guiding Manchester City back to victory over Manchester United with a world-class individual performance capped by two stunning goals. Guardiola led the praise and echoed his 2019 words by likening Foden's impact on big matches to Messi, who won the coach an untold amount of crunch matches when he was in charge of Barcelona.
"The good players can play well but you have to win games, and I knew the greatest ever player like Messi," Guardiola told. "He can win games, and I don't want to compare because Phil is not the level from Leo, but he is winning games." In another interview, Guardiola claimed Foden was "the best player in the Premier League right now". It is hard to disagree with his assessment.
As Foden basked in the glory of being the local hero who decided the derby for his boyhood club, it was difficult not to think of Jadon Sancho, Foden's old team-mate in the City academy. The pair were the leading lights of City's class of 2016, but while Foden is being talked about as a candidate for the 2024 Ballon d'Or and is destined for a huge summer with England, Sancho's career continues to stall.
Getty Tearing it up together
When the Premier League fixtures were announced last summer, Sancho would have been expecting to come up against Foden in the derby for United. Instead, the day before Foden's masterclass in Manchester, Sancho had another disappointing day at the office in Germany, being subbed off late on in Borussia Dortmund's 2-0 win at Union Berlin, having failed to contribute to a goal for the fifth consecutive game.
Sancho is unlikely to play in another Manchester derby again after reaching a point of no return with United, lashing out at Erik ten Hag on social media in September and refusing to apologise. But it is tempting to wonder what might have been had Sancho shown the same patience Foden did and stayed the course at City instead of leaving for Dortmund in 2017 in search of regular football.
Sancho had signed for City's academy from Watford in 2015, joining for an initial £60,000 ($76,000) fee which later rose to £500,000 ($636,000). Aged 15 at the time, he soon joined Foden in the club's Under-18s side and the pair worked up a devastating partnership on the pitch, scoring 15 goals each.
The duo starred in a 2-2 draw with United's U18s in 2016, with Sancho providing two assists while Foden got on the scoresheet. Soon after, City chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarrak name-checked Foden, Sancho and Brahim Diaz, and tipped them to be starring in Guardiola's first team in the near future.
He said: "These are players that are extremely talented. These are players who have a very good chance of making it to the first-team. And these are players that, if you ask Pep today, he will tell you they can and will be first-team players at Manchester City."
AdvertisementGetty Contract breakdown
Sancho, however, decided to leave City the following summer, while Brahim left for Real Madrid in January 2019. Despite the praise from Khaldoon, it has been reported that Sancho's camp felt that Foden was the player City favoured and had drawn out a path into the first team for.
Sancho felt he was ready for first-team football but envisaged a crowded path at the Etihad Stadium, with Foden likely to be ahead of him in the pecking order in addition to established first-teamers Raheem Sterling, Riyad Mahrez and Leroy Sane. City were keen to offer him a first-team contract worth £30,000 ($38,000) per week in 2017, but Sancho wanted assurances of first-team football, something the club could not give him.
Learning that the contract talks were breaking down, Guardiola opted against taking Sancho on the club's pre-season tour of the United States, but did include Foden in his squad. Sancho did not take that snub well and refused to turn up to training, instead returning to London. Soon after, he agreed a move to Dortmund, with City receiving an £8m ($10m) transfer fee.
"We tried absolutely everything to help them to play with us and he wanted to play in the first team," Guardiola said at the time. "There were many teams interested in him because he is a huge player, a huge talent. That is why we offered him the best contract possible to continue with us, but he decided to move on and with that we cannot fight.
"I cannot assure even the best players we have like Sergio [Aguero] and other ones, that you are going to play. I am not going to tell you 'I assure you, you will play all the games in the season' to sign the contract. I would be a liar, it's not true."
GettyProgressing faster than Foden
Sancho's willingness to move abroad to get first-team football was admirable and he made in-roads into the Dortmund first team, playing 685 minutes in the Bundesliga including seven starts. Foden, by contrast got just 45 minutes of Premier League action.
Sancho kicked on in his second season and contributed an impressive 13 goals and 15 assists across the Bundesliga and Champions League. He made his England debut in October 2018 against Croatia and begun attracting interest from United.
Foden, meanwhile, was developing at City and slowly getting more first-team appearances, but compared to the breathtaking rate of success Sancho was enjoying, his progress was glacial, making 10 Premier League appearances, just three of which were starts. But he got a taste for winning as City lifted all three domestic trophies.
Foden's importance in the team grew with each season, but Sancho was still making more headlines, notching 17 goals and 16 assists in the 2019-20 Bundesliga campaign as he worked up a strong understanding with new signing Erling Haaland.
GettyAttitude problems
But despite his excellent form in Germany, questions had been asked of Sancho's attitude. His time-keeping had been a problem at City, leading him to being dropped for an FA Youth Cup tie against Arsenal, and reared its head again in Germany. Sancho was dropped for a match against Borussia Monchengladbach in 2019 after reporting back late to the squad from international duty.
Dortmund's then-sporting director Michael Zorc explained: "Jadon is a good lad, but he's very young and shot to the top. He might test his limits and that's why we decided to not call him up today." Sancho also 'tested his limits' in 2020 when he defied Germany's coronavirus lockdown rules to get a haircut, which led to him being fined by the German FA.
"He just has to be smarter and grow up with things like that," team-mate Emre Can said at the time. "He can't afford to make such mistakes in the future. You have to lead Jadon the right way." Coach Edin Terzic came up with an interesting solution to Sancho's disciplinary lapses, encouraging the player to stick close to Haaland, the model professional, and learn from him.
But Sancho's problems with indiscipline came back to haunt him at United. Nemanja Matic revealed last year that the winger was "always late" to training, along with Paul Pogba. And Ten Hag accused him of not giving everything in training before this season's match at Arsenal, which led to their falling out and Sancho eventually returning to Dortmund.
Rather than show some humility after speaking out against Ten Hag in order to return to the squad, Sancho refused to apologise to the manager and remained barred from first-team activities. When United were in action, he was spotted playing video games online.