It only took City’s senior first-teamers two minutes to size up Rico Lewis according to manager Pep Guardiola. Just 120 seconds.
That is not a long period to persuade some of the best players in the world, and one of the most successsful managers ever, that you have what it takes to make it into their dressing room and stay there. But the young full-back did it, so little wonder there such overwhelming satisfaction all round when he proved them all right in front of cameras and the public against Sevilla on Wednesday night.
Lewis’s Champions League debut vindicated the judgement not just of the first team squad who recognised a bit of themselves in the raw talent but that of his family, coaches, teachers and mentors at the club who have helped him progress from his first trial aged seven to this moment.
