Man City's new star Savinho on his love of bull-riding

First impressions don’t always count for much at Manchester City. Experience tells Pep Guardiola to not pay too much attention.

Over the course of their manager’s unimaginably dominant eight-and-a-half years, plenty have arrived to great fanfare and then found their blades stuck in the blocks when the pistol fires. City have learned to live with that reality.

The vast majority of those purchased by the perennial Premier League champions eventually sprint off and don’t look back. And this is particularly true of the fast twitchers, the wingers.

Bernardo Silva, Riyad Mahrez, Leroy Sane and Jack Grealish all struggled initially, all then becoming instrumental in varying roles, Silva eventually a master of all trades across the pitch. Jeremy Doku was in and out last year too and there is something about those specific positions which require the Guardiola Acclimatisation Period. It’s normal, almost expected.

But this boy from Brazil, the 20-year-old Savinho? He just gets it, whatever it is. Very few have appeared this comfortable this quickly in a City team and, really, there can be no higher accolade for him at the moment. Already he is so obviously a Guardiola wide man.

Watching his striking cameo at the Community Shield after two training sessions with completely new teammates was an eye-opener. A week later at Chelsea, his thirst for possession – running Marc Cucurella this way and that, mercilessly going at him again and again – while also devouring work going backwards added further weight to the idea that this lad might be a bit different.

And he is different, Savinho. A different story, a different character, a different footballing upbringing – introduced by the legendary Jorge Sampaoli, messed about by Ruud van Nistelrooy and finely tuned by Michel at Girona. ‘They’re all top,’ Savinho tells Mail Sport. ‘I’ve been on the right path with them but now I’m with the best of them all.’

The best of them all has some player on his hands and, had he added a goal or two to these early season performances, the whole division would be talking about him.

Guardiola has obviously noticed and admitted in midweek that the £32million signing from sister club Troyes, for whom he never made an appearance, has adapted quicker than anticipated. ‘To say he’s been here with us just three months, his level is really high,’ Guardiola said. He went on, describing Savinho’s ‘aggression’ and labelling him a ‘typical Brazilian’ with a relentless attitude to counter-pressing.

The aggression is interesting. In the league, only four City players – Rico Lewis, Mateo Kovacic, Ruben Dias and Josko Gvardiol – have completed more than his 11 tackles and interceptions. All four are defensively minded, which says something. Niggling injuries have meant Savinho’s only featured in the equivalent of four matches, too, so those statistics would ordinarily be higher.

‘I haven’t changed my style,’ he says. ‘I’m still a player for the one on ones and making assists. I’ve not changed in that aspect. I’ve always had that willpower to say that as soon as you lose the ball, you look to get it back as quickly as possible. To then set somebody up.

‘I’ve always watched City and always been impressed by their pressing. Lots of people talk about their quality on the ball, which is evident, but what they do without the ball – winning it back, putting in the effort – really impresses me and something I always try to do.’

The perfect fit, then. Savinho is just like 20-year-olds across the globe, who spent childhoods idolising Guardiola’s City. Trying to imitate them on video games. Using them as a reference point. He talks about how being here, at this club, was always his dream while on the family farm in Sao Mateus, an area the size of Colchester on Brazil’s east coast. One of his closest friends insisted he someday make it over to the dreary northwest, which has housed so many of his compatriots. 

How he did that started in a little car chugging down the same road, the Rodovia Fernao Dias highway, for 12 hours straight. ‘So long,’ he says, eyes wide. A decade ago, now, when Savinho packed up his life, bid farewell to the cows and horses at the family ranch, and spent half a day travelling to Belo Horizonte 379 miles inland. Atletico Mineiro, giants in Brazil, had spotted him in a friendly with a local team, Santa Cruz, and sent for the kid who – those who know him claim – appeared ‘chubby’ yet whose left foot was sent from heaven.

‘Without doubt that was the most difficult period: leaving home, where I grew up, to Mineiro,’ he says of a period when he lived with academy teammate Yan Phillipe, now playing in Mexico. ‘I just missed everything. The daily stuff. I missed being with my grandparents. I’d cry. I cried a lot. Even now I miss home. The hardest moment was leaving my small town to chase this dream. I didn’t really have chance to get back much from Mineiro. Maybe holidays but it wasn’t possible to go there and back [often]. It was a sacrifice I had to do.

‘I love home. I’m so happy to have my family still there, it’s so special for me. I love it – whenever I have a couple of days off, a break, I’m always going to be there, always. All of my days off, holidays, I’m heading there. I feel comfortable there, I can recharge my batteries.’

It’s where Savinho reset over the summer with his wife Anna Carolina, whom he met as a child; the couple married last year and are already talking about raising Mancunian kids. He’s outdoorsy – the nearby Peaks and Lakes will be on the list to explore – and the apartment living in Manchester’s thriving centre is a significant departure from normality.

This is where his difference comes back in. Normality is milking cows and tending horses and it was just like old times when Sao Mateus welcomed him back days after signing the relevant papers at City in July, on the back of starring at the Copa America, in a very brief break before the next chapter began. Brazil’s next big thing, up at 5am tending to whichever jobs were required. He prefers the horses but happy to muck in with the cows. Apparently he’s not bad in the saddle.

‘Until I was about 16 I would always ride,’ he says. ‘Not so much nowadays in case something happens. But before I’d go out a lot. Now I’m a bit more worried about coming off, because it’s been a while since I’ve ridden. But also to be professional – in case you fall, in case you get injured. I have a bit of a fear about that.’

Fear of injury to harm his professional aspirations, not the actual act of falling off. If not football, he’d have designs on starring in another sport and it’s a guarantee that no player in Britain has ever uttered this next answer.

‘Somebody gets onto a bull and the bull’s jumping around a lot, you know? You have to hold on for eight seconds. I’ve never had a go. It’s very dangerous! If I wasn’t a footballer then I would!’

Bull riding then. Nope, not on the bingo card. It’s family tradition to attend two or three rodeos whenever the prodigal son returns. These are the sort of nights broadcast on local television and remain huge in the countryside states.

Belo Horizonte had its own version, by way of an education under the eccentric ex-Chile and Argentina coach Sampaoli. Savinho’s done well to cling on there. He lights up when discussing the fiery, diminutive 64-year-old, whose own wild career jolts wildly from the sublime to embarrassing. Sampaoli had the teenager training with the first team for just six weeks before throwing him a professional debut at 16, becoming one of the youngest in the club’s history.

Atletico’s list of those debuting at that age includes the famous old striker from the 1970s, Reinaldo, who Zico once said would have become the country’s greatest since Pele had injuries not curtailed his career. Not bad company to keep and he owes it to Sampaoli, who he says adopted him like a son.

Those paternal relationships often lead to a demand of higher standards – see Guardiola and Phil Foden for reference – and this had an added dimension.

‘Sampaoli changed my life. And changed my family’s. I’m never going to forget what he did for me. He’s like a dad to me. We were always joking on the training ground, and sometimes I was the butt of those jokes, but it worked really well. Sometimes he’d take my phone and just chuck it as far as he could. It was my job to go and find it! Only as a joke. My phone or my trainers, I’d have to go and get them.’

Savinho, whose diamond earrings clash with a clearly grounded outlook on his journey, laughs when it’s suggested racing off to collect phones is why he’s so proficient at charging down defenders. Harassing them like Mahrez, spinning away from them like Mahrez. Perfectly laying on for Erling Haaland like Mahrez in the 2-2 draw with Arsenal and for that barely believable backheeled volley during the midweek win over Sparta Prague.

‘Erling’s always asking for the ball off me, and he’s right,’ he says. ‘He puts a lot of pressure on with that! I want to give him a lot of assists.’

Now in Saudi Arabia, Mahrez noted similarities straight away and, while watching that Chelsea match, tweeted that he was looking in the mirror at City’s new No 26 – his old jersey. The pair of them do have the same fleet foot, the same gait.

‘It was always a dream to play like him,’ Savinho says. ‘I’ve been asking Ederson how he was in training, how he played. He’d just say he was incredible, top. I always watched him back in Brazil, wanting to emulate how he played.

‘I decided to take his shirt because I want to carry on that legacy he left here and carry it on. And yes! The tweet! So happy – and so were my family! I was a bit surprised to be honest. I sent him a message to say thank you. He replied and followed me on Instagram. It’s great he is watching and supporting me – and continuing to support City.’

Ederson has acted as an unofficial player liaison, helping with the language barriers. Savinho is taking English lessons but doesn’t feel like it’s coming naturally just yet. Typically, cursing was lesson one. The most important tutorial, he grins. Lesson two: learning the dressing room japes and they moved on to navigate the options in the canteen.

It sounds as though someone like Ederson was missing during a frankly miserable loan spell at PSV Eindhoven in 2022 – intriguingly somewhere Oleksandr Zinchenko also failed to make an impression as a youngster.

Savinho had joined the City Football Group’s Troyes from Atletico after being extensively scouted by CFG’s South American division, headed up by Guardiola’s friend Joan Patsy. Loans elsewhere were the development plan, Troyes supporters expressing dismay at CFG’s handling of Savinho as they suffered relegation from Ligue 1 and then struggled in the second division.

PSV didn’t work, with injuries and a lack of opportunity under Van Nistelrooy, ending with only 94 minutes across six league substitute appearances. A painful first experience of the European game.

‘I’d speak to my agent to say, “look, I don’t think this is right, maybe I need to leave”. That first year was so hard. It was really important to suffer, learn, pick things up. I took so many learnings from that. You can see that with how I’ve progressed and now I’m here.’

He didn’t appear in a first-team game from October onwards and when CFG discussed for another loan within their web of clubs, the Girona coach Michel needed serious persuading. Within months, he was comparing Savinho’s ‘destabilising’ dribbling ability to international peer Vinicius Junior, a frontrunner for Monday’s Ballon d’Or alongside Rodri and Michel is credited by Guardiola with coaching him to play just as City want.

The rise was staggering, Savinho leading the way – predominantly from the left wing, not his preferred side – in their unlikely tilt at the La Liga title and eventual Champions League qualification. Nobody in Spain completed more dribbles than his 118; he ended up with 21 goal contributions at an average of one every 154 minutes.

City’s outgoing sporting director Txiki Begiristain became a regular at Girona and the conversations quickly migrated from whether they should purchase him to when.

This start – his link with others, the tenacity, the darting through challenges and carrying possession – suggests they were right. The prevailing feeling is that one goal in City blue and Savinho catches fire.

‘It’s not quite weighing on me, because I don’t get anxious about it, but it’s something I’m working towards every day,’ he adds. ‘My finishing, staying calm in that last moment when you’re approaching goal. I know it can come at any moment. I’m hoping once one comes, many more will follow.’