Nico O’Reilly: The local lad with 0161 tattoo who could be key in Carabao Cup final | OneFootball

A player who is making his mark has an imprint on him. Nico O’Reilly has got a tattoo of a telephone code: 0161, the prefix for Manchester numbers. “It’s where I grew up, Manchester, the area,” said Manchester City’s No 33. “It's me, really, how I became who I am today. Growing up there, I really enjoyed it. I used to go out, play football every day with my friends. I’m still in touch with a lot of them.”

O’Reilly still plays football with his friends now. Except that those friends are Erling Haaland and Gianluigi Donnarumma, Ruben Dias and Rodri. He grew up idolising Kevin De Bruyne and admiring Ilkay Gundogan; there have been games this season when an ultra-versatile player has taken their old roles in the City midfield.

At a club who have spent around £430m on new signings since the start of 2025, he is the man acquired for nothing who can keep some of the big buys out of the team. In a globalised game, he is the local lad. Very local, given that he comes from barely a mile from the Etihad Stadium.

“Originally from Collyhurst, I grew up there,” said O’Reilly. “I recently moved away from there but it was a great place. I loved living there. I'm a bit out of the way now. I like it. I'm still with my family, which is good. They're there to look after me a bit and still support me.”

Collyhurst, a suburb of east Manchester, may be better known for supplying Manchester United with a World Cup winner, in Nobby Stiles, but it also produced Brian Kidd, a player and assistant manager for both clubs. Perhaps O’Reilly has reclaimed it for City. His family are largely City fans, but a couple have United allegiances. “One or two, but they're all supporting me,” he said.

His personal fan club can be seen at each match. He gets plenty of request for tickets. “My little sister comes to every game,” he said. “She loves it, a big City fan. She's massively into football now.”

And the games have rarely been bigger for him. He sat out Real Madrid on Tuesday but has a Carabao Cup final against Arsenal on Sunday. O’Reilly’s City debut came at Wembley, in the 2024 Community Shield against United. He got a medal that day but this could bring a first major trophy in his career; another marker in his rise.

He has been on City’s books since he was eight, but his journey has still involved something of a roundabout route. The boyhood De Bruyne fan did not expect, last January, to be reinvented as a left-back by the ever imaginative Pep Guardiola.

“It was a bit of a surprise,” he recalled. “I think it was just one session before the Salford game last season. He said, ‘right, you're playing there tomorrow’. Then I did well, gradually, and I started playing there more and more.” Modesty may preclude O’Reilly from mentioning that he scored his first City goal as a left-back against Salford.

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O’Reilly operated in different roles in both legs of the Carabao Cup semi-final win over Newcastle (Action Images via Reuters)

For much of 2025, his games came in the back four. “This season, I started to go back into midfield a bit,” he added. In the first leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final against Newcastle, he anchored the midfield. In the second, he operated in a more advanced role.

He is that rarity, a left-back who can also play as a No 10. He has an eye for goal and a status as a talisman: when he starts, City rarely lose - only three times in 35 games this season, compared to six defeats in the 13 when he was not in the initial 11.

He looked immediately at home, despite admitting he found the step up nerve-wracking. “At first it was,” he said. “It's a bit, ‘this is new’. You go from 200 people there to thousands and thousands. It's a big difference. As the games go on you get more used to it, you get comfortable, more confident, and you find it okay.”

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The youngster now plays alongside footballers he formerly idolised (Getty Images)

Not that O’Reilly looked paralysed by nerves when he scored in the Bernabeu against Real Madrid in December. Now Wembley will host one of the biggest crowds of his brief career. He has seen City win plenty of silverware there: just not in person.

“I didn't get the chance to go to any finals when I was younger,” he said. “But I watched them on TV and now to be playing in them and be involved is a great achievement. It'll be special to win a trophy like this.”

Doubly special, given that it could be a weekend of celebration for him. O’Reilly turns 21 on Saturday. But as footballer, it feels like he has already come of age as the man with 0161 inked on his body is part of Guardiola’s first 11. It is about where he comes from, but also where he is going.