From Player of the Month Awards to silly quizzes to semi-final success, here are a few things that have caught our eye this week.
Birthday celebrations
Mason De Bruyne seems to be something of a regular feature in things we love, and it’s hard not to include him when you see videos like this of the KDB mini-me.
MDB recently celebrated his 2nd birthday, and we can’t get enough of his celebration when he blows the candles on his birthday cake out.
Something he’s learnt from his Dad, perhaps?
Century success
Next, we venture oversees to the states as David Villa recently celebrated his 100th appearance for New York City.
Villa celebrated in style by netting the equalising goal for NYCFC during the club’s 2-1 victory over LA Galaxy.
Congratulations, David! What an achievement.
FA WSL Player of the Month
Onto more personal successes now, as Georgia Stanway became the first City player to be awarded the FA Women’s Super League Player of the Month Award.
The youngster sealed the trophy for February and we are sure that this goal had something to do with it… Watch it again, you know you want to!
Abu Dhabi sing-song
Pep Guardiola’s side travelled away to Abu Dhabi for a training week after our 2-0 victory over Stoke on Monday evening – and the squad were clearly very excited about swapping the Manchester rain for the sunshine!
On the plane Zinchenko captured the team’s happy spirits as they burst into song before take-off.
Loan star
Over to Amsterdam now as Manu Garcia’s seriously slick skills caught our attention.
The 20-year-old has made a total of 51 appearances for the Dutch club since going on loan to the club back in 2017 and continues to impress… as shown in Breda’s Instagram post!
Q&A with the Skip
FourFourTwo’s silly questions feature is always an entertaining read, but we particularly loved their recent interview with City skipper Steph Houghton.
Stepping away from football, the article shared some things that we didn’t know about the Blues Captain, including Steph’s odd dreams and knocking in a 147 at the Crucible. Odd, but brilliant!
Injury boost
We were delighted to see Tessel Middag back on the pitch last weekend.
While it may not have been with the first-team, the Dutch midfielder featured in the Development Squad’s clash against Chelsea Ladies U23s and helped City reach the final of the Development League Cup!
Middag has been out of action for almost a year after suffering from an ACL injury, but her appearance last weekend has provided a well-needed boost in her recovery!
“It was almost unreal because from the moment of my injury to Sunday it was almost 10 months,” she explained to ManCity.com. “Obviously I’ve been working towards this moment for a long time and it’s just weird that all of a sudden it was there and I was putting on the match kit again.
“I couldn’t wear my own kit with the development squad as they play with numbers one to eleven, and if I had worn my number there would’ve been two number fours on the pitch!
“But to wear the City kit and to be out on the pitch doing the warm-up and playing felt so great. It felt so good to have that matchday feeling again!”
UYL progression
Finally, big congratulations are in order for our U19s squad who have reached the semi-finals of the Uefa Youth League for the first time!
After 90 minutes the game ended level on 1-1 which led to penalties – again!
We experienced a tense penalty shoot-out in the Round of 16 against Inter Milan back in February where ‘keeper Dan Grimshaw was praised for his stopping heroics at the Academy Stadium.
Grimmy was called to action again against Liverpool on Wednesday afternoon and helped us book our place in the next round.
— Daniel Grimshaw (@Grimmy1998) March 14, 2018
City are set to travel away to Nyon, in Switzerland, to face Barcelona in the semis on Friday 20 April.
