Getty The versatile teenager is Pep Guardiola's new golden boy and looks set for a glorious future for club and country
It was Manchester City's first Premier League game after the 2022 World Cup, away to Leeds United. The starting XI looked familiar enough, featuring 10 players who had just appeared in Qatar. There was one exception though. Rico Lewis, who had only turned 18 the month before, was making his first league start.
Meanwhile, the highly experienced pair of Joao Cancelo and Kyle Walker were on the bench. Both had gone deep at the World Cup, to the quarter-finals, but here they were, behind a kid who had only begun training with the first team the previous summer.
Lewis was eventually taken off for Cancelo when City were 3-0 up. But he was back in the line-up ahead of Walker and Cancelo again for the next game against Everton. Walker and Cancelo were restored for the following game at Chelsea, but both were hauled off at half-time at 0-0. Lewis was brought on and helped City earn a 1-0 win.
The humiliation grated away at Cancelo and he grew more and more irritated at losing his place in the team, leading to a furious spat with Pep Guardiola which saw him quickly loaned out to Bayern Munich, the first step of his eventual permanent departure to Al-Hilal. Walker, however, knuckled down and worked his way back into the team at Lewis' expense, becoming a crucial part of the team which won the treble before being named club captain.
Lewis continued to impress but ended up playing fewer minutes last season than in his breakthrough campaign. However, now the pattern has repeated itself and Lewis has pipped Walker's place again, not just for City but for England too.
