A Liverpool writer recently suggested that Manchester City fans don’t deserve their fabulous team. It was an inexcusable claim made in the gnarly hours after defeat and hopefully it’s been regretted ever since but even so it has to be acknowledged that he was one-eleventh correct. We don’t deserve Ederson Santana de Moraes. No fan-base does.
In order for a set of supporters to have equalled out karmic law and earned the right to be entertained on a weekly basis by the brilliant Brazilian head-case it’s necessary for us all to have done a number of things.
We should by rights have donated a kidney each to medical research while giving up our spare time on a regular basis to help the elderly cross roads. We should have collectively, since 2013, summoned up the combined benevolence of Ghandi and Mother Teresa and refrained from laughing at Manchester United’s travails. A sponsored fun run here and a few stints in soup kitchens there and then perhaps we might be deemed worthy.
Man City are 3-0 up, and they didn't put Ederson up front, disgraceful from Pep Guardiola
Needs to pay more attention to the Stuart Pearce school of coaching.#HUDMCI pic.twitter.com/yeVGWh83nl
— The Sportsman (@TheSportsman) January 20, 2019
Except that still probably wouldn’t cut it, not really, because the 25 year old would still be a generous gift bestowed on the already spoilt; the cherry on top of a pie made up of glistening cherries. City’s innovative and utterly beautiful football – itself a source of implausible good fortune – is masterminded by the most charismatic coach in modern times.
It is bolstered by a leader and icon in Vincent Kompany whose class is such that even Brexiteer grandads praise him to the rafters. Up front scavenges Sergio Aguero, as cool and singular as strikers used to be in the Seventies, and all of this sporting splendour comes together through the orchestration of David Silva, the most likeable and watchable footballer in living memory.
Then along comes Phil Foden, the finest talent of a generation waiting its turn and here it just gets a bit silly. I mean, think about it. The teenage Iniesta-incarnate first joined City three months before their transformative takeover and unquestionably he would have shot through the ranks regardless of the club’s circumstances because he’s a Blue and lives in Stockport.
To unearth such a superstar-in-the-making who has an umbilical connection to the fans is dumb, arbitrary luck that could have struck any club across the land. It struck Manchester City, a team and club who already had everything. It’s Richard Branson winning fifty grand on a scratchcard. It’s simply not fair.
@PremierLeague assists this season:
Ederson
1 AssistJorginho
0 AssistsNaby Keita
0 AssistsA reminder that Ederson is a goalkeeper. pic.twitter.com/k2XjetoZcm
— SPORF (@Sporf) January 13, 2019
So hands up, fair cop: who City really should have stewarding their nets is a keeper as solid, dependable and uninspiring as a Leno, Kepa or Cech in his prime. A pragmatist who plays the percentages and focuses solely on technique. A goalkeeper, in short with the personality of a walnut.
Instead we’re blessed with unhinged nonconformity that manifests itself in borderline genius; a player who genuinely excites from a positon that does not. Ederson is box-office; unmissable, committing himself to a ninety minute balancing act between method and madness that more times than not produces moments that astound and justify the ticket price alone.
A drag-back on the goal-line. A no-look dummied pass under pressure. An impromptu rondo sesh a hundred miles from home. A series of high wire triangles with zero margins for error. These are the hallmarks of grainy clips we used to see in our cosseted days featuring crazy South Americans only now they’re executed with a purpose and executed with clinical mastery. His heart-rate slows while ours palpitate. He knows what he’s doing. We struggle to catch up; we struggle to catch our breath.
He knows what he’s doing because then comes the pass. The pass. The one with the flat trajectory and the unerring accuracy that has you uttering the name of a crucified hippy followed by a noise usually reserved for when you’re clearing your throat of Wotsit dust.
Man City's Brazilian goalkeeper Ederson joining the midfield pic.twitter.com/OScPqsy4QD
— World Football Index (@WorldFootballi) January 15, 2019
This from a goalkeeper. This crowd-engrossing, family-friendly entertainment from a player whose job it is to negate crowd-engrossing, family-friendly entertainment. Last week I attended a supporter’s branch meeting and in an era of Pep’s Centurions and De Bruyne and Sergio all they wanted to discuss was the lad from Osasco, a ‘very dangerous town’ on the outskirts of Sao Paulo. A goalkeeper.
A lot was made of Ederson’s rondo session against Wolves and rightly so. It allied itself perfectly to the joke that the former left-back should be deployed in midfield, so good is he in possession, so bored is he in nets.
For me though what I took away from that game was an incident in the first half. It was a goal-kick – the most everyday occurrence in football – and Ederson attempted to replicate his assist for Aguero from earlier this season. He spied Jesus on his own. He thwacked it an extraordinary distance. It nearly got there too.
And I laughed. I laughed out loud at the audacity of it. I laughed like I last did as a child, witnessing the anarchy of The Young Ones. We don’t deserve Ederson Santana de Moraes but then again who does and so what? So long as we’re thankful. So long as we appreciate every last, special second of him.
