Only a month ago, Kaden Braithwaite was waiting anxiously for his GCSE results. That should help put into context the 16-year-old’s Manchester City debut on Tuesday night.
The versatile defender lined up at left-back as Pep Guardiola rang the changes for the Carabao Cup game against Watford, a little over two days after the battle with Arsenal.
Braithwaite has only trained with City’s first team once, on Monday. He impressed so much that Guardiola and Txiki Begiristain, the director of football, decided he was ready for a proper run-out in a team that largely contained senior players with serious medal hauls.
He was withdrawn with 15 minutes to go after cramp got the better of him, but he at least received a hug from Guardiola on his way off, capping an emotional evening for him and his family.
Braithwaite is the latest in a long line of City debutants who have been at the club for most of their lives. On Tuesday, five graduates of the ‘Junior Academy’ — the department responsible for training and recruiting youngsters up to the age of 13 — started against Watford and a sixth came off the bench in the second half.
Phil Foden and Rico Lewis are established first-teamers now. James McAtee has had two seasons of senior football on loan at Sheffield United and is now vying for a regular spot at City. Nico O’Reilly impressed during pre-season and made his first competitive start on Tuesday (he also played in the Community Shield in August). Jacob Wright, the second-half substitute, has already played in the FA Cup.
That is the same path trodden by Cole Palmer, who has shone in his own right since moving to Chelsea last summer for more than £40million ($53.5m). The success of that particular City conveyor belt, providing half of City’s starting outfielders against Watford, has caught the eye so much in the past year that Guardiola and Begiristain now have regular meetings with Trevor Todd, who has presided over the junior academy for the past 15 years.
“It’s unbelievable — the guys who are in charge and the recruitment,” Guardiola told ManCity.com last summer. “The new generation is coming and they told me it is really good, there are three or four players that are exceptional.”
There are indeed several players in the youngest age groups that staff believe will be good enough to play for the first team one day.
In recent years, City’s academy has held up both ends of the bargain, providing players both for Guardiola’s squad and plenty of others across Europe. When players move on, they often bring in large transfer fees as clubs are desperate to get their hands on youngsters trained at City.
Since 2017, academy sales have provided more than £300million for the club coffers.
“We sell a lot, normally with a buyback,” Guardiola added last summer, even before Palmer’s departure. “To make £80million or £85m just from the academy is unbelievable.
“That shows how good the club is working. I am pretty sure that one or some of them maybe will be back here with us. (I’m) really pleased.”
Braithwaite’s rise is nothing out of the ordinary, then. Not because he is an ordinary footballer or person, but because he is one of several highly-rated players making their way through the ranks at the same time.
He was born in Bolton and was first scouted by City at under-7 level while playing for his grassroots team, Ladybridge, against De La Salle in Salford. Gael Clichy, Fabian Delph and Eliaquim Mangala were all at his signing night. He quickly stood out as very mature for his age, which is the kind of thing that gets written about a lot with young players because the best often are.
Even at eight years old he went out of his way to shake everybody’s hand and say hello around the training ground and still does now. Once, at a youth tournament in Turin when he was eight, City had to beat AC Milan by four goals or more to advance to the final. They did, but at the final whistle, Braithwaite’s first thought was to go over to his distraught opponents and console them.
He has always been described as a mature player on the pitch and having made his debut for City’s under-18s last season, he has been promoted to that level on a full-time basis for this campaign. He has already been made vice-captain.
To have impressed Guardiola and Begiristain on day one is no mean feat either and while City were always going to make a raft of changes for the Watford game given it came so soon after the Arsenal match, it is quite something to go from the under-18s to the first team on the back of one training session. Most debutants have been around the senior squad for weeks and often months before getting on the bench, let alone starting.
Opportunities like this are going to be harder to come by for the rest of the season, and possibly next, but as the third youngest starter in the club’s history, Braithwaite has time on his side.
(Top photos: Family archive and Darren Staples/AFP via Getty Images)
