Pep Guardiola is the man to make Man City winger Leroy Sane into one of the best
By Kristan Heneage
Just watching Leroy Sané dribble can you make feel unsteady on your feet. Weaving left and right, there is a beautiful simplicity to the way the German plays.
“I am looking around where the defence is and where my team-mates are, and looking for space and then running into it,” Sané said. “If I get the chance, then that is what I will do.”
That is why Pep Guardiola was willing to pay Schalke £37million for Sané last summer. From the German club’s perspective it was a mammoth fee for a player they had almost released in 2014. “He was playing so badly, and his attitude and body language were so bad,” Norbert Elgert, Sane’s U-19s coach at Schalke told the Independent recently. “I said at half-time 'This is your last match for my team'.”
The penny dropped, and what followed was a Sané inspired come-from-behind victory against Sporting, during which he netted a brace. After two years in the first team, he was on his way to England. The move to City was a big step though. At first — and perhaps understandably — the German looked timid, with Guardiola even admitting his new signing looked ‘scared’ by his new surroundings.
Eventually, Sané began to adjust. He became accustom to the speed and started to use his own to devastating affect, with his runs from outside to inside difficult to track. Last month, after a 2-0 win against Bournemouth, Guardiola referred to him as part of City’s future, while a goal and an assist against Monaco in the Champions League again highlighting his influence on the team.
“He’s just 20-21 years old so the gap to become a really good player is still so big,” Guardiola said after Sané scored in a 2-0 win over Sunderland in early March. “I can say that because I was the manager of the best player in history [Lionel Messi]. That’s why I know the gap - he can improve. That’s why he’s [got to] calm down. He knows they are going to push him a lot. The moment he’s going to relax is going to be in another place - not on the pitch - but because we want to help him.”
The City boss has always been keen to temper his praise. Sané, for all his dribbling brilliance and clinical nature in front of goal (he has six goals from just eight shots in the Premier League this season) is still a developing project. His decision making is not perfect, he can sometimes disappear in games, and he can also be one-footed at times. However, Guardiola clearly has the patience required to help Sané develop.
“When it’s going bad it’s always expensive,” Guardiola said, referencing Sané's significant transfer fee. “In the beginning it was expensive, now it’s cheap. I think he has a lot of qualities. He’s so fast, and runs in behind like few players in the world.”
Impressing on the field, there’s talk Sané has also earned the respect of older teammates for his professional attitude. Players such as Pablo Zabaleta and Yaya Toure are eager to take him under their wing, and make him into the superstar that Guardiola sees.
Given that the Spaniard enjoys working with young players, three years under his tutelage could be vital in terms of elevating Sané to the next level. “With this talent it would be a pity not to try to realise all this potential that he has,” Guardiola said earlier this month.
A pity indeed, it seems Sané is now showing why Guardiola had such faith in him, and why he is viewed as a central figure in the club’s ambitious future. The winger that unsteadies his opponents looks like he himself is on a solid footing to develop further, and that should scare defenders across Europe.