Source: Daily_Mail
It's got to be the Champions League for us: Martin Samuel goes inside Man City
To the right of the main entrance, on the wall of the building that houses part ofManchester City's new training facility on a reclaimed peat bog called Carrington Moss, there is a small wooden box.
It is easy to miss it. Indeed, that is the idea. The box conceals an exposed pipe and Mark Hughes, the Manchester City manager, hates exposed pipes; and exposed wiring; anything that makes a professional environment look untidy, in fact.
And each day when he came in to work he would pass an irritable comment about the pipe protruding from the wall. This summer, the finishing touches were put to the new structure and when the players reported back for training, everywhere looked pristine and perfect.
And when the shiny newness of this environment was pointed out to Hughes, he said, with utter seriousness: 'Yes, and I see that bloody pipe's gone, too.' So the white painted wooden box is more than a random piece of carpenter's housing; it is a symbol, of the club Manchester City is, and the club it used to be, before oil money from Abu Dhabi provided the platform to realise dreams and ambitions.
'When we wanted to sign a player we used to take them anywhere but the training ground,' said Hughes. 'We would go to one of the top hotels in Manchester or take them to the stadium. But the training ground is where a player does most of his work and we could not go there.'
It is fair to presume that Robinho, the first major signing of the new era and still the most astounding, was kept many miles from the Carrington base. Indeed, on the eve of a new adventure for City, it is worth recalling the club he joined on the final day of the transfer window last season. Robinho's arrival was a genuine sensation in an industry that hypes up plenty of false ones and everybody, except him it seemed, knew the erratic nature of the club he was joining.
To put this in perspective, City's previous owners, who were from Thailand, had wanted to incorporate the odd elephant into the club badge. They wanted to signRonaldo, and not the slim one, either. There was no human resources department for a business with more than 250 employees, no organisational chart demonstrating the executive chain of command.
City, at that time, had four treatment tables in the medical centre serving every player at the club, from the first team to the academies. It meant that after training sessions there could be a queue to rival an NHS waiting room; and last season City had plenty of injuries.
'When we get down sometimes, if results are not going our way and things are not progressing as quickly as we would like, we look around here and realise how far we've come,' said Hughes.
'This place was not fit for purpose. There was no care here, no pride, it was not a building in which a professional could do his best work. When I compared it to what I had at Blackburn Rovers, for instance, it felt like stepping back in time. Since we walked through the door it has changed beyond all recognition.'
Small additions, such as a decent size swimming pool, are in the final stages of construction, but City now have outstanding medical facilities, hydrotherapy units, a gym with enough equipment to accommodate the first-team squad and Dizzee Rascal on MTV pumping out of several large televisions sets.
Suffice to say there is no longer a log-jam for the physiotherapist and large ante-rooms equipped with white board technology host meetings for team and staff (this is where the sniping observations of Sir Alex Ferguson were used to galvanise the players in a PowerPoint presentation).
More conventionally inspirational quotes from Muhammad Ali and Lance Armstrong adorn the walls, beside instructions on liquid intake and dietary requirements. For any top-level European club it is standard stuff; but for City it is a new dawn.
'I remember what they did at Bayern Munich,' said Hughes, 'and it was about removing any reason for failure. Footballers are under a lot of pressure. They are in the spotlight constantly. If things don't go right, it's hard to take, so people look for excuses to distract the attention from them.
'We had that here and now we do not. We have a different feel now, as if we are at the start of something good, and you can perceive the change in the players. There's more enthusiasm, there is greater anticipation. It's chalk and cheese.'
This is a point on which Robinho had elaborated when we spoke earlier. He said the difference between Real Madrid, his former club, and Manchester City was not so much one of environment, but attitude in the squad. It came down to better players, confident players.
Those at Madrid believed they could win, those at City were too used to being the butt of the joke, so that even if they played well in one game, it could not be sustained the following week.
It is perhaps this doubt that Hughes identified when he talked of the need for professional surroundings. Whatever City achieved, when the players went back to work on Monday morning it was to a place that reminded them they were still a small club.
'There have been changes off the field but the main change is within the team,' said Robinho. 'The Real Madrid team were very different because they had players like David Beckham or Raul, who were winners. It was not so much about the size of the clubs, but the winning mentality.
'When I first came to Manchester City I did not see the desire to win every game, week after week. I thought this was missing in the players but maybe it was lack of belief. We did not think we could win anywhere, at any ground. The manager had this but the players did not. We had to grow as a team first. We couldn't expect to make so much progress in one season.
'I have experienced this before. If you want to be a great player in Brazil you have to be able to handle the attention and pressure because every game, every tournament, you are expected to win. Second is never good enough.
'It helps me here because, in Brazil, two bad games and you are out, you are finished.So when you play in the league here you are used to putting together consistency, 10 good games, no stopping. That is what must happen this season.'
To this end, Hughes may not have been able to secure John Terry, the England captain, from Chelsea, but he does feel the make-up of the squad contains a surfeit of players who will no longer travel with an inferiority complex.
'We're getting there,' Hughes insisted. 'We made a list of all the honours this group of players have won and they include the Champions League (Roque Santa Cruz, Carlos Tevez), the Premier League (Wayne Bridge, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Tevez, Kolo Toure), the FA Cup (Bridge, Wright-Phillips, Toure), even some international tournaments(Robinho won the Copa America and the Confederations Cup twice).
'They have won league titles in Spain, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, the list is huge. Then we have a majority of players who have captained a club, or sometimes their country, so they understand what it takes. We have individuals who we expect will come to the fore when we have to claw back uncomfortable situations. They will not hide.'
For all the summer transfer activity, Robinho remains the most compelling character in Hughes's team. Good Brazilians have never been commonplace in the Premier League, even in recent years when England appeared the preferred destination for the finest footballers.
And while Robinho did not completely take the game by storm last season, nor did he receive sufficient credit for his total of 15 goals in 40 appearances. After all, most foreign players take a year to adapt to English football.
In his first season with Chelsea, Didier Drogba scored 16 goals in 41 games, playing in a far superior side that won the league under Jose Mourinho. In the circumstances,then, Robinho's year showed great promise.
'The first season was OK because I was settling in, but this year, for me and my team-mates, we have got to take off,' said Robinho. 'I set targets and now it is no less than 20 goals and 30 would be fantastic.
'I'm confident in the team's ability, and my ability, to do this. I expect us to be challenging for the Champions League now and next season I expect us to win trophies. Defenders will have to watch all the players at Manchester City this time; it will not just be about me.
'I feel happier now. I have had a chance to get used to the English game and am more comfortable with it. Spanish football is slower and more technical, but English football suits me because you need speed of thought and quick feet.
'When I used to watch English games in Brazil I thought the foot was being left in a lot. That's why Brazilian players do not like it as much. Then Juninho Paulista came to Middlesbrough and showed what you could do. Now I tell my Brazil team-mates, if you are quickminded, it will suit you also.
'They still joke about it, they recognise that it is tough, but also that it can be a beautiful game, and that it produces three or four teams who are in the quarter-finals of the Champions League each year. They know you must be a bright, intelligent player to play in this league.
'In the end, the ball is round. It is round in Sao Paulo, where I come from, it is round in Manchester; wherever you go it is the same shape. My club was Santos, so people always ask me about Pele, because that was his club, too, and I am flattered; but my real inspiration is the ball, not any player.
'What never alters is that if you are Brazilian, you want to play. I play in the street when I go back to Brazil on holiday. That is where I grew up, not on the beach. We played a fast game, like England, and tough, too you got kicked a lot. That is what it is like in Brazil.
'The forwards through to the midfield play the beautiful game, the midfield through to the back, they kick. If you watch a Brazilian team train it is very funny because we are attacking them and making fun, and they want to kick us but they know they can't because we have to be one team the next day. So the defenders get very frustrated.
'I played with my father, Gilvan, too. He was not a footballer, he used to work for the water company. I would run rings around him, he was a bad player. He used to end up kicking me as well, but it was all good preparation. Whenever you play as a forward you have to be ready for that.
'The day I do not finish with bruises on my legs it will be time to finish because only poor players are not worth kicking.
'In England, they either kick you, or mark you very tight. English defenders have good positional sense; they know how to get into you. So I think what I am going to do before the ball arrives. If I am already thinking one move on, I can avoid it.'
It seems reasonable to assume that Robinho's philosophy will keep him that jump ahead this season. There is no glass ceiling at
City these days; the only things boxed in are those pipes.
