{"id":296830,"date":"2023-12-13T23:24:28","date_gmt":"2023-12-13T23:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportsloveme.com\/?p=296830"},"modified":"2023-12-13T23:24:28","modified_gmt":"2023-12-13T23:24:28","slug":"pep-guardiola-had-no-idea-he-first-met-micah-hamilton-as-a-ballboy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportsloveme.com\/soccer\/pep-guardiola-had-no-idea-he-first-met-micah-hamilton-as-a-ballboy\/","title":{"rendered":"Pep Guardiola had NO IDEA he first met Micah Hamilton as a ballboy"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1> Pep Guardiola had NO IDEA he first met academy starlet Micah Hamilton as a Man City ballboy as he heralds the debutant&#8217;s &#8216;fantastic goal&#8217; in Red Star Belgrade win<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Guardiola&#8217;s side beat the hosts 3-2 to maintain their perfect qualifying record<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Hamilton&#8217;s explosive debut saw him score and win the penalty for Kalvin Phillips\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Man United are stuffed if captain Bruno Fernandes says he thought Bournemouth would be easy &#8211; It&#8217;s All Kicking Off\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Pep Guardiola was left shocked after learning Manchester City debutant Micah Hamilton was a ballboy for the club in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Hamilton scored in what was his first senior appearance as City beat Red Star Belgrade 3-2 to finish the Group stage with six wins from six games.<\/p>\n<p>After the game, Guardiola was shown a photo of himself and Hamilton dating back to 2017, when the youngster was a ballboy at the Etihad stadium.<\/p>\n<p>Hamilton was one of the ball boys that Guardiola instructed to help lift his team\u2019s intensity by ensuring games re-started quicker, but the manager did not seem to remember the youngster\u2019s beginnings.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I didn&#8217;t know! Six years ago? Wow!\u2019 Guardiola said as he looked at the image.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/12\/13\/21\/78932585-12861207-image-a-75_1702502272675.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Micah Hamilton (left) scored upon his Man City debut after getting the nod from Pep Guardiola<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/12\/13\/21\/78932621-12861207-image-a-74_1702502266985.jpg\" height=\"477\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>But Guardiola was unaware that he had previously called upon Hamilton&#8217;s services whilst he was a ballboy in 2017<\/p>\n<p>Your browser does not support iframes.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018What a goal, eh! And what a game. I&#8217;m so happy for him.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018He&#8217;s training quite often with us, we saw his skills up front 1vs1 and he made a fantastic goal and penalty and when he could not be 1vs1 he gave extra passes. Defensively he was aggressive.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Fellow youngster Oscar Bobb was also on the scoresheet while Kalvin Phillips netted a penalty to convert his first goal for City after a difficult two years.<\/p>\n<p>There was some surprise at Phillips being given the ball for the spot-kick, but Guardiola revealed that the midfielder has impressed with his shooting ability and that he wanted to improve his confidence.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018He&#8217;s an incredibly good taker. I know Phil (Foden) had ambitions to do it but Kalvin is an incredible penalty taker.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/12\/13\/21\/78932587-12861207-image-a-76_1702502284913.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>The 20-year-old lashed in an inch-perfect strike just inside his debut 20 minutes for Man City<\/p>\n<h3>IT&#8217;S ALL KICKING OFF!\u00a0<\/h3>\n<p><span>It&#8217;s All Kicking Off\u00a0is an exciting new podcast from Mail Sport that promises a different take on Premier League football, launching with a preview show today and every week this season.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>It is available on MailOnline, Mail+, YouTube , Apple Music and Spotify<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Your browser does not support iframes.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/12\/13\/21\/78929419-12861207-image-a-77_1702502293764.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Kalvin Phillips also scored his first Man City goal from the penalty spot after his rare start<\/p>\n<p>\u2018The game was not over and for his confidence, it was a difficult game because they made man to man so aggressive, a lot of interruptions and so many fouls.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018It was not easy to play comfortably but in the right moments we found our quality.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/football\/article-12861207\/Pep-Guardiola-Micah-Hamilton-ballboy-fantastic-goal-victory-Red-Star-Belgrade.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pep Guardiola had NO IDEA he first met academy starlet Micah Hamilton as a Man City ballboy as he heralds<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296829,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - 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