There was an element of last man standing about Rodolfo Borrell taking Manchester City’s pre-match media duties ahead of Friday’s FA Cup trip to Swindon Town.
Pep Guardiola will miss the trip to Wiltshire after testing positive for COVID-19. Juanma Lillo might have ordinarily been expected to take charge in his absence but Guardiola’s close confidant is also beginning a period of self-isolation.
Guardiola and Lillo are two of 14 staff members who have been hit by the Omicron wave, while seven first-team players will also miss the trip to the County Ground.
“We will play with what we’ve got, we have some first-team players and some others that will come from our second team,” Borrell said, in a matter-of-fact fashion.
“Right now, we are prepared to play the game and we have been preparing all days and we are mentally ready for it.”
In some respects, the affable Spanish coach might be the best man for the job when it comes to taking charge of a patched-up XI in unusual circumstances.
Borrell has been one of the constants of the Guardiola era. Alongside Brian Kidd and goalkeeping coach Xabier Mancisidor, he was in a minority among the first-team coaching staff in summer 2016.
All three were already in the building and retained by City, with trusted lieutenants Domenec Torrent, Carles Planchart, Lorenzo Buenaventura and Manel Estiarte following Pep as they had done from Barcelona to Bayern Munich.
Then there was Mikel Arteta, another external appointment and someone else brought in at Guardiola’s behest.
City’s subsequent success has resulted in a number of changes to that initial group. Torrent left to become a number one in his own right at New York City and then Flamengo, while Arteta is obviously overseeing an encouraging rebuild at Arsenal.
The latter departure saw Lillo, one of Guardiola’s guiding inspirations from the beginning of his coaching career, enter the fold.
While not as close to Pep as Juamna - few are, in truth - or with the previous working relationships the rest of the coaching team enjoyed, Borrell’s credentials made him an obvious fit.
He was Lionel Messi’s first Barcelona coach at La Masia, while his first job in England came as the head of Liverpool’s academy, where he oversaw the rapid rise of a certain Raheem Sterling.
Even if England forward Sterling is among tonight’s absentees, it will be reassuring for the likes of Cole Palmer, James McAtee and other youth team standouts to have Borrell’s steadying hand around as they face up to a packed away ground baying for some billionaire Premier League blood.
In their 2019 book Pep’s City , Catalan journalists Pol Ballus and Lu Martin described Borrell as a man with “a forensic knowledge of academy players throughout English football” who identifies those youngsters, such as Palmer and McAtee, that are ready to step up into the City first team.
He is regarded as being close to the players and took on player liaison responsibilities after Guardiola’s appointment. Since the veteran Kidd stood down at the end of last season, it is easy to identify Borrell as the “good cop” in City’s setup. Not that Pep is a “bad cop”, as such - more a terrifyingly intense detective who needs less coffee and a few more hours sleep.
What’s certain is Borrell, who is often seen sharing a joke with players and laughing his way through pre-match warm-ups, will offer stability in a time of uncertainty on Friday night.
The challenge laid down to City’s youngsters is which of them wants to make a name for themselves under the man who set Messi and Sterling on the way to doing just that and a whole lot more.
Which City youth team player would you like to see given the chance to shine at Swindon tonight? Follow the City Is Ours editor Dom Farrell on Twitter to get involved in the discussion and give us your thoughts in the comments section below.
