Former Manchester City defender Alexander Zinchenko has opened up about one of the toughest and most instructive moments he experienced while at the club.
The incident occurred during a training session before a Champions League match. Zinchenko was involved in a 50-50 aerial duel with Riyad Mahrez but chose to pull out, wary of injuring his teammate. At the time, no one on the pitch, not even Pep Guardiola, seemed to acknowledge it.
However, the true gravity of the situation became apparent in the dressing room, where captain Vincent Kompany delivered a savage wake-up call to the young defender in front of the entire squad:
He came up to me, grabbed my shirt, lifted me off the ground, and said, "This is the last time I want to see that. If you ever do something like this in training again, I will destroy you," Zinchenko recalled.
The Ukrainian footballer admitted that this incident became a fundamental lesson in sporting mentality: in a top club’s training sessions, there is no room for lowering your standards or cutting your teammates any slack. It was this uncompromising atmosphere within the dressing room that forged the winning spirit of the team, enabling them to clinch some of the biggest trophies in world football.
