Shaun Goater saw me ignore Manchester United - now I'm driving Man City's future

Manchester City are aiming for more history on Saturday at Wembley but Friday's meetings at the training ground may prove equally significant.

After months of surveys and workshops, this week has seen presentations on academy director Thomas Krucken's bold new vision for the club: what the future player looks like. With research cast far across the City Football Group to try and build up as much expert insight as possible, the aim is to start developing youngsters on a position-by-position basis for what City expect the professional game to look like by 2029.

Developing the next Rodri or Erling Haaland is no easy feat but in a shift in tone there is an acceptance that the longer a player is in the City academy the more chance they will have of making it. Phil Foden, Cole Palmer, Rico Lewis have been the standout talents of the last decade despite the money poured into the club since the 2008 takeover.

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Krucken sees the foundation phase when youngsters enter the academy at Under-9, and it is the early age groups that are seeing the most radical shake-ups. As part of mastering game understanding a decision-making as quickly as possible, players will also be introduced not just to considering different sports but actively playing them.

"I went to basketball, handball, basketball, boxing. You can learn so many things. When we talk about multi-sports in the foundation phase, we increase the multi-sports programme which is important for so many things," he told the Manchester Evening News.

"It's about learning. In a 1vs1 situation in football,