Manchester City's academy enjoyed another successful season, with the Under-18s beating Manchester United in the FA Youth Cup final and winning the northern league. There were eight first-team debuts, and homegrown star Nico O'Reilly was recognised as the best young player in the Premier League.
O'Reilly has contributed to a 75 per cent increase in minutes for academy graduates at the Etihad over the last three years, reaching 12,500. Under Enzo Maresca, the challenge is to keep improving. The promotion of Ryan McAidoo, Floyd Samba and Kaden Braithwaite to the first team this summer is a promising start.
Individual Development Programme expanded
Academy director Thomas Krucken is continuing his project of developing the 'future player' with the ambition of producing a Ballon d'Or winner from within the City Football Academy. While City aim for their youth teams to win trophies, the focus in the last three years under Krucken has increasingly been on individuals.
Two sessions a week were introduced for youngsters to work on specific training for their position. Braithwaite, for example, identified acceleration as an area for improvement and was able to strengthen that with coaches before bringing it into group training and matches.
The Individual Development Programme (IDP) expanded after Ferran Soriano saw the results and gave the go-ahead for more staff to be recruited and for existing staff to get specialist training. The next phase, 'Future Player 2.0', involves working with a company that uses AI to show players how far they are from the City first team.
AI to measure the gap
"We have a clear picture of what we want to develop for the future," Krucken told the Manchester Evening News. "What is needed for the winger of the future, and what does Ryan McAidoo need to increase his levels? When he came he was outstanding already, but it's about the last, let's say, five, ten per cent, and to prepare the player then for the demands of what we believe comes next."
City are sending data to a company that compares how well young players fare with different skills against first-team stars. McAidoo can see his strengths and weaknesses in every area and how far off Jeremy Doku or Antoine Semenyo he is.
"We have a game model and their position-specific profiles and needs of a profile to be able to play the kind of beautiful football we try to play," said Krucken. "And we created KPIs for positions. So, for example, pass options for a centre back, we identified six. And AI is able then to support us in the identification of where the player is, where does a player need more support, in which areas?"
Players in the driver's seat
Much of the IDP lessons are about making players think more about the progress they need to make as they get closer to a senior career. Coaches can suggest improvements, but the idea is that young footballers take on responsibility for all of the decisions they make, on and off the pitch.
Krucken is convinced City are on the right path, with first-team minutes backing this up. There is confidence this can continue under Maresca, a former Under-23s manager at the club with a strong track record of playing youngsters from Leicester and Chelsea.
"This big vision of developing the Ballon d'Or winner one day is an indicator that we are driven to try to be excellent in everything we do and learn from failures," the academy director said. "Because we are not doing everything right, but we are open to face mistakes, and this is also kind of our culture."
"Either you win or you learn - this is what Ferran Soriano always says, and I believe this is the right attitude and this is the path where we are following. I can't wait to implement these things and work with dashboards and I think it's needed that the players have these intrinsic motivations to see, okay, I'm here, I have to close this gap."
"The player should be in the driver's seat for his development, not us who tell the player all the time, you have to do harder here, you have to work here, here. The players have to feel that this is needed for them to become a first-team player at Manchester City, and I think these ideas hopefully help us. And if not, then we learn again and we create new ideas."
An extended interview with academy director Thomas Krucken will be available on the Talking City podcast and on YouTube on Monday afternoon.
