Manchester City executive makes Ballon d’Or admission amid Phil Foden resurgence | OneFootball

Manchester City academy director Thomas Krucken is keen on producing a Ballon d’Or winner from the City Football Academy in the future.

The CFG has become one of the most revered youth setups in world football in recent years, producing a number of first-team players for Pep Guardiola’s first-team since the Catalan took charge at the Etihad Stadium in the summer of 2016.

City’s most prominent academy graduate, in the eyes of many, is Phil Foden. Now 25 years of age, the England international has made 329 senior appearances for the Blues, scoring 102 goals since he burst onto the scene in 2017.

Foden’s best individual season came in the 2023-24 campaign, wherein he netted an incredible 27 times in 52 games, in addition to providing 12 assists for his teammates. This saw him named as the PFA Players’ Player of the Year and the Premier League Player of the Season.

Nico O’Reilly has also established himself as a regular fixture in Pep Guardiola’s side in 2025, having penned a new long-term deal with his boyhood club recently. Playing in a position in which he is slightly unfamiliar, the 20-year-old has been one of City’s most consistent and dependable performers over the last six months.

It is telling that Guardiola’s side are yet to lose a league game when O’Reilly has started. Although he is in the midst of somewhat of a footballing identity crisis at the moment, Rico Lewis has also established himself in the first-team after graduating from the academy.

The youngster has made over 100 appearances in sky blue and even won a handful of senior caps for England, being named Player of the Match on his Three Lions debut. Despite the CFA’s success in recent seasons, Krucken believes that the academy can go one step better in the future.

In an interview with Simon Bajkowski of the Manchester Evening News, the Manchester City academy director said: “We have the ambition to develop a Ballon d’Or winner so in the future I’d like to have a sign for that.

“We want to be the best football academy in the UK and across Europe so we are an academy to develop players for the top level and we’d like to develop a Ballon d’Or winner one day. It’s highly ambitious but it is high motivation for us. I think the reality is the motivation, so the pathway from Nico O’Reilly is the most important.

“Last season in Bratislava in October, Nico O’Reilly was part of the EDS team and one year later everybody sees there is a pathway and this is so important for players and staff to see the door to the first team is open and that performance and development dictates their pathway.

“Everybody has the opportunity because they really keep an eye on these players as part of the vision of the football club.”

Perhaps the next academy player to establish himself in the first team will be Divine Mukasa. The 18-year-old played all 90 minutes of City’s 2-0 victory against Huddersfield Town in the Carabao Cup third-round, picking up an assist in the process. He has also been named on the bench for multiple Premier League and Champions League matches.

Krucken mentioned the positive feeling amongst the academy staff when the versatile attacker and a number of other academy products, made their senior debuts against the Terriers.

“The development and performance of their players dictate their pathway and currently we have some good examples, like Divine (Mukasa),” Krucken added. “Everyone was really proud in the academy at Huddersfield that so many academy players were involved in the squad. It was a success built over years from many people.

“The next day in the academy I looked into so many proud eyes because so many staff members have been there over the last years and been part of their journey. This is the motivation for everybody to develop even more players for those level.”

It seems plausible that Mukasa will have some sort of role to play in City’s upcoming Carabao Cup fourth-round tie against Swansea City – as he was not part of the academy squad that faced Rotherham United in the Vertu Trophy earlier this week.

However, Hugo Viana and co spent a considerable amount of money to reduce the average age of the City squad in the summer. There is no guarantee that Mukasa or any other academy talents will establish themselves in the first-team – and they will need to show consistent excellence to become regular starters at the Etihad Stadium.