The goal that changed everything

Noisy neighbours. I remember Sir Alex Ferguson calling us that, back in 2009.

United were the top team in Manchester at that time, but also one of the dominant sides in the Premier League. City, meanwhile, were undergoing a huge transformation since the arrival of new owner Sheikh Mansour in 2008. I had arrived at City that year, too.

In my first and second seasons at the club, we couldn’t think about fighting to win the Premier League. We didn’t have a team ready for that, nor the mentality. But we did take important steps, especially at the end of the 2010/2011 season, when we beat Manchester United in the semi final of the FA Cup and won the final, 1-0, against Stoke City.

It was City’s first trophy under the new owner.

Going into the 2011/12 season, we were totally psyched that it was the year we had to win the Premier League. We had everything – a very high level in terms of players, infrastructure, and a winning mentality.

Now we were ready, and we showed it throughout the season, taking on the demands of competing with – and directly against – United. We won both games against them in the Premier League, 1-0 at our ground and 6-1 at Old Trafford. The 6-1 was an unforgettable triumph.

"WE HADN’T FELT THAT KIND OF PRESSURE BEFORE"

During the week leading up to the last game of the season, with the title on the line, there was a lot of tension. We were all under pressure. It was a project that had been started four years previously and we had an obligation to win, otherwise it would be a big blow. There was a section of people who were against what City were doing. “Money doesn’t guarantee anything good in the end,” they said.

But the project was geared towards achieving good things, and players started to look at City as an important team to go and play for. That way, the club was able to sign great players and, with them, fight not only for the Premier League, but also in time for the Champions League.

In the 2011/12 squad, there were four players who had been at the club before the arrival of the new owner: Vincent Kompany, Micah Richards, Joe Hart and myself. In fact, we were called ‘The Survivors’. The rest of them all came into the team under the new owner.

Apart from all the pressure we put on ourselves, there was also the pressure from the media. There was a lot of talk about City all week, which was something we weren’t used to. We hadn’t felt that kind of pressure before, being favourites to win the title. Going into the last matchday, we were level with United in the table on 86 points, but our big goal-difference advantage – eight better than United – meant we were top.

"we knew that they would sit back in a low block to defend, waiting for a counter-attack or a set-piece"

So we were the main focus of attention for seven days, although that didn’t change anything in training. Our coach, Roberto Mancini, stuck to the usual plan we’d been used to the whole season. Had he altered anything, that could have made us more nervous.

There was only one change in the run-up to the final game, which was against QPR. It wasn’t Mancini choosing to change things, but because of the constraints of the situation. We always went for a walk on the morning before a game, but on that final day we couldn’t. From early in the morning, there were a lot of City fans around our hotel. It was impossible for us to get out.

That didn’t matter, though. It was an amazing feeling when we saw them all out there.

The arrival at our stadium was equally incredible. Inside the bus you could feel the desire of the City fans to win. It was new and old generations together. The last time the club had won the championship was 1968. Since then, they had been in the second tier on several occasions, and even down to the third. That day, though, we could become champions of England.

In the pre-match talk, Mancini stressed that we had to score an early goal. QPR themselves needed a point to stay up. That’s why we knew that they would sit back in a low block to defend, waiting for a counter-attack or a set-piece to see if they could score a goal.

"as a coach, you have to be aware that it’s not just your idea of the game that matters"

We had to go out and try to take the lead quickly, because in football if you don’t break a block that is defending deep, the opponent becomes stronger in their thinking. Then, as time goes by, you become more and more nervous. We believed in what Mancini told us, as we did all year. He was the coach who got us to that point.

It will always go down in history that Mancini was the manager who won the first Premier League title of City’s new project. Then came Manuel Pellegrini and Pep Guardiola.

All the coaches I had at City had something in common: treating the ball well and wanting their team to be the protagonist, playing good football. I very much share that idea of a link-up style of football. As does Sylvinho, who I am working with as assistant coach of the Albanian national team.

But as a coach, you have to be aware that it’s not just your idea of the game that matters. There is also another very important part: management of the group. Mancini was able to manage the group very well throughout the 2011/12 season. It was a team with great players, but also with different personalities. You have to mix all that well to make it work.

Mancini also did that in the game against QPR. It was a crazy game, not least because there were people at QPR who had been at City before. One of them was Mark Hughes.

"It would have been unbelievable, but the movie had a very different ending"

Hughes had been our manager in the 2008/09 season. On that May day in 2012, there he was in the other dugout, intent on stopping us from being champions. It was strange, but even more so because there were a number of former City teammates playing against us, too.

I had to mark Shaun Wright-Phillips, who had played most of his career at City. I played alongside him from 2008 to 2011, so we had a very good relationship. “Pablo, stop running – we need a point,” he repeated to me several times during the game. “And we need all three because United will win their game,” I said back to him. There was also Nedum Onuoha, QPR’s right-back in that game, who had come through City’s youth ranks and spent eight years with the first team.

It got so crazy, in fact, that it was me who scored the goal that put us 1-0 up.

I was a player who hardly scored. By the time I left City, after nine years, I had only scored 12 goals. In that 2011/12 season, I hadn’t scored once before the final game. Then, in the 39th minute, I went up the right flank, got inside the box and scored with a shot on goal from Yaya Touré’s assist. We went into half-time with that 1-0 lead, and I was dreaming of the result staying like that: a goal from me to give City the title.

It would have been unbelievable, but the movie had a very different ending.  

In the second half, Joleon Lescott, our centre-back, tried to clear the ball with his head, but he missed and the ball fell to Djibril Cissé, who made no mistake in the 1v1. Level, 1-1. We needed to score, because the news from Sunderland was that United were winning.

"Every time the ball came to me and I had to make a cross, it felt like my feet weighed 80 kilos"

Every so often, we would ask the bench how they were doing. “It’s still 1-0,” they’d say. I had no doubt that United were going to win their game, so we had to score. But it was QPR who scored next, on the counter, when Jamie Mackie made it 2-1 in the 69th minute.

The final minutes were not easy. I wasn’t just feeling it, I was really feeling it. Every time the ball came to me and I had to make a cross, it felt like my feet weighed 80 kilos. It was so tense.

QPR put a lot of people inside their box. We wanted to look out wide to cross over the top, but we couldn’t get a header in. And if we wanted to play inside, there was no way through. It was very difficult, and there was less and less time remaining.

When those final minutes came, it was very difficult to manage. But there’s something about the City fans that you find in English football. Anywhere else, surely if you are losing 2-1 at home and the championship is at stake, the fans are all over you. They start to abuse you from all sides and you get even more nervous. I don’t want to imagine that situation in my own country, Argentina.

"luckily, the magic from Mario Balotelli – magic that hadn’t appeared all year – suddenly appeared"

But the City fans were with us. Every attempt on goal, they cheered us on. Every corner was celebrated as a goal. I always talk about it; it’s a psychological factor that pushes you and makes you believe it’s possible, even if after 90 minutes we thought it was impossible. That only happens in England.

Our equaliser came from a corner, with a low header from Edin Dzeko. It was the 92nd minute, and put us back in it.

Now to the last scene. We already knew that United had finished their match and won – I saw on TV afterwards that some of their fans were already celebrating the title. It was a situation that QPR didn’t handle well, because they had a throw-in. They could have taken it, held the ball and the game would have been over. But QPR tried to make an attacking move and lost the ball.

That gave us a favourable situation to make the last attack of the game. Nigel de Jong carried the ball up from the defence and there, luckily, the magic from Mario Balotelli – magic that hadn’t appeared all year – suddenly appeared. He gave the best assist of his career to ‘Kun’ Agüero.

"when you build such an ambitious project, the hardest thing is always to win the first big title"

Kun was the player who had to get the ball at that moment, because only he could make the play to score. 3-2.

I had stayed in midfield. When I saw Kun score, I fell to the ground. I didn’t have the strength to run and celebrate. There was so much accumulated tension by that point, that I couldn’t believe it when the ball went in. I saw everyone shouting and Kun run off to celebrate.

Growing up, I never would have thought I would win a Premier League. In 2008 I had arrived at City, who at the time were a mid-table team that would also never think of winning the title. But shortly afterwards I found myself surrounded by stars like Samir Nasri, David Silva, Yaya Touré, Carlos Tevez and Edin Dzeko. Now we were champions of England.

On a personal level, I was living a dream.

But Agüero’s goal was much more. It was not only the goal that won us the Premier League that season; it was also a goal that changed the history of the club, because when you build such an ambitious project, the hardest thing is always to win the first big title. City stopped being the ‘noisy neighbours’ and went on to become everything they are now.

I am very grateful to have been part of that moment. Hopefully I’ll be lucky enough to repeat it as a coach because, despite the suffering, it was a moment of madness worth living.

Author: The Coaches' Voice

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