Roméo Lavia: Discovered by Man City at De Bruyne Cup - “Has what Guardiola is looking for”

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Tommy Doyle, Liam Delap, Cole Palmer, James McAtee – in the past one and a half years alone, Pep Guardiola helped four talents from Manchester City’s academy to make their Premier League debuts. The next youngster could soon follow in the person of Roméo Lavia. The 17-year-old made the Skyblues’ matchday squad on three occasions, with his only appearance coming in the EFL Cup against League One side Wycombe Wanderers. The right-footed Belgian played 90 minutes in central midfield alongside Kevin De Bruyne, the player indirectly involved in his move to City.

Since 2016, De Bruyne’s youth club KVV Drongen has held a youth tournament at the end of each season with internationally renowned clubs – the KDB Cup. In 2018, the youth teams of Paris Saint-Germain, Borussia Dortmund and Manchester City, among others, took part, losing to RSC Anderlecht led by captain Lavia. As usual, plenty of scouts, sporting directors, managers and coaches took the chance to watch the stars of tomorrow, including Guardiola.

Lavia was playing in the youth system of the Belgian record titleholders for another two years before the Spaniard’s effortful persuasion bore fruit. In the summer of 2020, he moved to City’s academy, much to the chagrin of Anderlecht head coach Vincent Kompany. “It’s a great pity. Everyone advised him to stay with us, including the people at City. But the boy has a very strong character and wanted to take the career jump,” the former Citizen said at the time.

After a few appearances in the U19s of the English titleholders, promotion to the U23s quickly followed – with them, he won the title in the Premier League 2 directly in the first year. Lavia was voted player of the season and was fully integrated into first team training this summer, as well as being called up to the Champions League squad. In addition to Guardiola’s support, the defensive midfielder has a current teammate helping him a lot: Fernandinho.

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The 36-year-old Brazilian extended his expiring contract for another season in June and is particularly in demand as a mentor this year. “I’ve watched a lot of Fernandinho and Busquets. Those two have dominated the game as defensive midfielders,” Lavia told Goal in an interview back in April. “Fernandinho knows what he’s doing - he doesn’t run just to run. He’s like the brain of the team. When you’re young you want to run – left, right – but he knows what he’s doing so he won’t run as much, but will still be effective. That’s something I keep learning from him.”

Breakthrough at Man City without loan spell? Roméo Lavia “can do it”

Indeed, the Belgian’s style of play is close to that of Fernandinho or Busquets. In possession, he is always open to receive the ball and dictates the game with clever cross-field or deep passes. Lavia also impresses in defence with clever anticipation, which often leads to interceptions.

He has been demonstrating this for most of the current season in the second team, where he is picking up match experience. Lavia is not expected to become part of Man City’s Loan Army, which again contains 15 players this year – at least as things stand. “City need people with such a profile. (...) He has what Pep Guardiola is looking for. Normally, as a young player you only have a one in a million chance of making an immediate breakthrough at Manchester City, but Lavia can do it. He is such a special talent,” Kompany insisted this summer.

Regardless of his short-term development, Lavia is expected to have a long-term future in the midfield of the Skyblues, ideally to cover De Bruyne’s back. The 30-year-old is still under contract in Manchester until 2025 and speaks highly of his compatriot: “He‘s a very good player. He has been training with us since the end of last year. If he continues like this, he will be a real asset for us,” the most valuable Belgian told the MidMid podcast a fortnight ago (quoted via Voetbalnieuws).

From December 1 to 24, we introduce new players from different countries born in 2004. Area managers, users, and data scouts come into play as experts throughout the series. You can follow all those players by adding them to your TM watchlist.