Spanish Connection Helps Aymeric Laporte Thrive at Manchester City
There is a moment in the Amazon Prime Video documentary series All or Nothing: Manchester City that betrays some of the apprehension Aymeric Laporte must have felt about embarking upon his new career in English football.
In a scene that unfolds in the dressing room prior to City's Premier League game at Burnley in February, the camera zooms in on a smartphone display screen that shows a snowflake icon and an outdoor temperature of two degrees Celsius.
Laporte, a blue and white scarf covering his neck and chin, tugs at his black gloves as he asks then-assistant coach Domenec Torrent and video analyst Carles Planchart in Spanish if the home fans at Turf Moor make a lot of noise.
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Planchart nods, and Torrent adds: "Away from home, you'll see the fans shout all the time."
In an interview with Bleacher Report at the launch of the new Adidas Predator 18+ Team Mode boot, Laporte says he has "one-and-a-half episodes" left to watch of the documentary, which he has been squeezing in between Fortnite sessions on his PlayStation.
"It's really well done, really well filmed," he says. "You see things in the film that you generally don't see—what happens inside the changing room, the meetings. It's true that some scenes were cut, but it helps you understand. For example, after a defeat we're just as disappointed as the fans, if not more."
Laporte signed from Athletic Club Bilbao on January 30 and made his City debut the following day in a 3-0 win over West Bromwich Albion. He watched the 1-1 draw against Burnley, three days later, from the bench but was City's second most-used centre-back behind Nicolas Otamendi in the second half of last season.
He has started every game of the current campaign to date and scored his first Premier League goal in last Saturday's 1-1 draw at Wolverhampton Wanderers.
A ball-playing defender with a superb passing range, Laporte is a different kind of footballer to the archetypal rugged English centre-back, but he says that thanks to Pep Guardiola, adapting to the Premier League has been a breeze.
"My style of play has always been 'Guardiola style,' so I've not had too many problems," he says. "At the same time, he helps you to evolve and to change little things, because it's obviously not exactly the same style of play as at Bilbao.
"I've always liked him and I've always followed him, so I knew a bit about what his ideas were and how things were going to go. It's going well and I think I've adapted pretty quickly."
Laporte makes his entrance in the fourth episode of the documentary series, which charts City's progress during their triumphant 2017-18 campaign. He is shown alighting from a black people carrier on an airport runaway in Bilbao before being flown to Manchester by private jet to complete a £57 million transfer that at the time made him the club's record signing (a title he has since lost to Riyad Mahrez).
He shares an embrace with Guardiola while posing for photographs before the transfer has been announced, telling his new manager in Spanish: "I'm happy to be here."
The 24-year-old began his top-level career at Athletic Bilbao under another visionary coach, Marcelo Bielsa, and he says there are similarities between how the two men work.
"They're both very, very good at coaching a team," he says.
"[Bielsa] helped me a lot, technically—I say me, but he helped all the team. We worked a lot on passing drills. Also on a defensive level, we worked on a lot of things. It's the same here [at City]—we work on everything at the same time and we get better with each day.
"[Guardiola] is someone who understands football perfectly. It's been a pleasure to have been able to learn from two such great, great coaches."
Learning to play football the Bielsa way was only one element of the steep learning curve that Laporte faced in Bilbao. Born in Agen in south-west France, he joined Bilbao's youth setup in 2010, meeting the criteria of their Basque-only policy by dint of a Basque great-grandfather.
Being the only non-Spaniard in the squad presented appreciable challenges, but he now speaks Spanish with as much confidence as his native French.
"It took three months before I started talking a bit—or trying to talk," he recalls. "But after a year, I spoke perfectly. Well, perfectly—there were still certain words and endings to words that I couldn't figure out how to say. But it was pretty quick because I had help from my friends."
As a young centre-back playing in Spain during a historic high point for Spanish football, Laporte did not want for role models, yet the first name he cites is perhaps not the one you might expect.
"I've always really liked [Carles] Puyol, even if his profile has always been more of a fighter than someone who brings the ball out," Laporte says during a phone-call from Manchester.
"He wasn't a natural with the ball at his feet, but he remains a reference point for me among the centre-backs of world football. In terms of being on the ball, [Gerard] Pique has always been very strong and has always been able to do great things with the ball, so I admire him too. Then there's [Sergio] Ramos, who's able to do both. And there are lots of other players who I could mention."
Laporte, who supports Bordeaux, remains uncapped by France at senior level and has admitted he felt "jealousy" when he saw his peers lift the FIFA World Cup in Russia.
He was overlooked again when Didier Deschamps named his first post-World Cup squad on Thursday, but despite having previously suggested he would consider switching allegiances to Spain if he continued to be ignored by France, he dismisses the notion he could one day turn out for La Roja.
"No, no, no. Spain isn't something that I'm thinking about today, or that I've ever thought about," he said, in comments made before the France squad was announced.
"It's not something that I have on my mind and I don't think I ever will, so it's not a question that needs to be asked at the moment. I'm still thinking about France—it's the France team and not the Spain team."
Despite his lack of caps, Laporte is no international outsider, pressing his nose against the sweet-shop window and gazing longingly at the treats inside. He was capped over 50 times by France at youth level, captained the under-19s at the 2013 European Championship and skippered players such as Benjamin Mendy, Samuel Umtiti, Corentin Tolisso, Thomas Lemar, Florian Thauvin and Nabil Fekir—all of whom are now world champions—with France under-21s.
Laporte's move to the Etihad Stadium reunited him with Mendy, and while he dreams of the day when they will renew their association in France's colours, he is happy to be playing alongside the gregarious former Monaco man in sky blue for City.
"Obviously he's a joker and a guy who creates a good atmosphere in the changing room," Laporte says.
"We needed a player like that here in Manchester, and I was really happy to see him again after six years in the France team with him. It was good to catch up, to recall the great times we'd spent together and to continue our journey. On the pitch, he's a really great full-back. I think he'll achieve lots of things because he has lots of ambition."
Mendy's redeployment at wing-back and Laporte's association with John Stones at centre-back have given indications as to how Guardiola intends to develop City's playing style this season.
The appeal to Guardiola of a Stones-Laporte partnership is obvious—a right-footer, a left-footer, each as comfortable on the ball as a central midfielder—and the sense they were made to play alongside each other is reinforced by the discovery they were born a day apart in May 1994 (Laporte on the 27th, Stones on the 28th).
"It works very well," Laporte says. "He's a young player with a lot of potential. He's already played a lot of matches in the Premier League, so he knows what it is.
"In every match, the coach asks us to do certain things and we try to carry out all his wishes. It's gone well at the start of the season and we have to make sure it continues to go well in the future."
The nights will be drawing in soon in Manchester and memories of summer's fiery heat will fade. The winter will bring more chilly mornings and more boisterous, tightly packed away grounds, but with Spanish coaches in the dugout, an old France comrade at his side and a style of play that fits him like a glove, Laporte feels right at home.
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