Among the many players that have arrived at Manchester City early and then moved on, we can find Rony Lopes.
The Portugal international, now at Troyes in France, who are part of the City Group, spent three years at the Etihad side after arriving from Benfica’s U17s in 2012 for £900k.
He then went to Lille on loan in 2014, before being bought from Manchester City by AS Monaco in 2015 for £10.8m, providing the Premier League side with a healthy profit in the process.
Lopes only ever made five appearances for the English club, spending far more time in their U21s, and, speaking to the Ligue 1 official website, revealed how tough it was when he first arrived.
On his first year at Manchester City, he said: “Everyone thinks I made a lot of money as soon as I moved from Benfica to Manchester City, but that wasn’t the case. The first season was very difficult. My transfer had been complicated, there were administrative problems, because I was only 15 years old.
“On top of that, I had settled there with my father, but we didn’t speak a word of English. The first three months, we lived in a hotel and then we took an apartment hotel. It was really complicated. Fortunately, the second season, my mother, brother and sister joined us and from then on, I felt much better.”
Despite the early struggles, Lopes makes it clear that he’s really grateful for the opportunity to play for Manchester City, as it helped him support his family, leading him to tell his parents that they no longer needed to work.
On top of that, he will never forget the experience of training with some of the world’s greatest players at the time, naming the likes of David Silva, Sergio Agüero, among others.
