Rayan Cherki: The Future of Creative Football at Manchester City

In Lyon’s academy, Jérémie Sage saw what many around him refused to believe.

While others doubted whether Rayan Cherki would ever turn his outrageous skill into a serious career, Sage watched a teenager who, in his eyes, was already operating on a different plane.

“It was a process with him, because a lot of people thought that he would not have success in his career,” Sage recalled of their time together in Lyon’s youth ranks and first team. “I did not have this same thought. I explained to him: ‘You have a big talent, and I think you can show it in special contexts’.”

Cherki has started to do exactly that. His last outing against Bournemouth offered a glimpse of the player City executives believe can one day take on the role Kevin De Bruyne has defined for a decade: the creative heartbeat, the one who sees passes others don’t even scan for.

Sage always felt the game slowed down for Cherki in the final third. The challenge was everything else.

“You have to give something for the team defensively and keep your talent in attack,” he said. The message was blunt, the bar high. Work for the team without dimming the light that makes you different.

In attack, though, Sage quickly realised he was dealing with something rare.

“I had nothing to say to him offensively because he understood the play better than me,” he admitted. That is not a line coaches throw around lightly. For Sage, the problem was no longer how to instruct Cherki with the ball, but how opponents could possibly contain him.

“To control him, the best thing is to prevent all the passes to him,” he said. “Because when he has the ball he is able to do things we don't imagine.”

That is precisely what has drawn City’s hierarchy towards him. They have earmarked Cherki as a long-term successor to De Bruyne, a player to carry the weight of their attacking imagination once the Belgian finally hands over the baton.

The admiration runs both ways. Cherki has called Sage a footballing genius, a label that was put back to the coach this week ahead of Friday’s clash in South London. Sage batted it away, only to elevate his former protégé even higher.

“I don't know the word for higher than a genius,” he said. “I am not a genius; he is a genius. To speak about something and to teach something is a step. But to do these things is another step. He is at this level. Maybe God?”

For Sage, the boy he once guided in Lyon is no longer a project. He is the finished idea others are only just starting to understand.