With a contract situation at Borussia Dortmund that left his future rather precarious, many expected Manuel Akanji to leave the Bundesliga club this summer.
Many teams were linked, but few expected Manchester City would be the ones to eventually buy the player, bringing him in in the final days of the transfer window.
Pep Guardiola felt the need to bolster his defence once more, and with the Switzerland international an easy target, a move was quickly wrapped up.
The 27-year-old made his first appearance for Manchester City in the Champions League against Sevilla, but he has yet to be given the chance to play in the Premier League.
That will undoubtedly come, and in an interview with Blick, the centre-back revealed how the transfer unfolded, and how late everything happened.
Asked when he was first contacted by Manchester City, he said: “Four days before the end of the transfer window. In the days that followed, Manchester City negotiated with my agent and with Dortmund. It happened extremely quickly: I flew to Manchester on Tuesday, did my medical on Wednesday and the transfer was official on Thursday.
“I flew back to Switzerland, my son was born, I flew back to Manchester on Sunday. Then on Monday, the flight to Spain and suddenly on Tuesday I played against Sevilla in the Champions League as a starter.”
A busy few days then, with the day he signed described as the ‘craziest day’ of his life, and Akanji revealed he only got to train with his teammates twice before Guardiola threw him at the deep end.
He also finds Erling Haaland once again at Manchester City, since they were teammates at Dortmund, and he said the two of them have ‘always been in contact since he left’ the Bundesliga side.
In fact, once the move to the Etihad was close, Akanji said the two ‘exchanged ideas’, and the pair are now ‘happy to be able to play together again’, especially because, as a defender, ‘you’d rather play with Haaland than against Haaland’.
