Man City debutant Micah Hamilton was ballboy who got instructions from Pep Guardiola
Micah Hamilton marked his Manchester City first-team debut with a goal – seven years after receiving orders from Pep Guardiola during his stint as a ballboy
Micah Hamilton was handed his senior Manchester City debut against Red Star Belgrade tonight – but it wasn’t the first time he had received instructions from Pep Guardiola.
The exciting winger, 20, has been on the fringes of Guardiola’s squad recently and came into the side as the City boss made nine changes for the Champions League dead-rubber away to Red Star. Hamilton made the most of the opportunity by giving City a 20th-minute lead with an angled drive which flew into the roof of the net.
While Hamilton may not be a well-known name, many will have already seen him receiving orders from Guardiola before. Back in 2017, Hamilton was a ballboy at the Etihad and was spoken to by Guardiola, who wanted him to retrieve the ball quicker to help the team maintain a high tempo.
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City won the match, against Crystal Palace, 5-0. Speaking afterwards, Guardiola explained what he wanted from his team, and his ballboys. He said: "If you analyse 30 minutes in the first half, we were not ready to be there. Maybe over 90 minutes you cannot be there all the time. But it was slow.
"If there was a foul, no-one went to take the ball and start to play. There was five, 10 seconds before someone goes to take the ball and start to play. When this happens everything is slow. So the ballboys were slow, everybody was slow. And we have to create in the game, to provoke the game. And we didn't for most of the time in the first half."
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Hamilton, whose progress has been checked by several injuries, is captain of City’s elite development squad, where he is coached by Brian Barry-Murphy.
"Micah's probably gone under the radar because he's been injured for a long period," said Barry-Murphy, reported the Manchester Evening News. "We feel he's coming back into good form and feel he's got a lot more movement in him.
"He can get a lot fitter and if you see him at his best he's pretty unique and has distinct parts of his game which are really exciting. I say to him he's a street footballer, you see Oscar Bobb [who also started against Red Star] who's very exciting to watch.
"Micah is the same, someone who can eliminate players one by one, no matter how the game evolves, for a player to be able to beat a player one-v-one is one of the most exciting things."