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Around 5pm on Sunday Swiss time, the referee blew the whistle for the match at Luton Stadium against ManCity. Manuel Akanji came on as a stoppage-time substitute to ensure the treble winners won 2-1. A few hours later, the Nati star was present in Zurich when he received the “MVP” award at the Sports Awards.

“It was very spontaneous,” Akanji said in an interview with 20 Minutes after the show. At first, he didn’t know whether coach Pep Guardiola would give him a leave of absence or not.

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The Winterthur resident explained: “Recent results haven’t been good so I don’t know if I should ask or not. But ManCity is usually very willing with such individual awards. “Guardiola said if I come to training on time tomorrow there will be no problem.” Since Akanji’s return flight left Zurich at seven o’clock on Monday, that was enough for him to get back to Manchester on time.

There is always a lot of praise for Manuel Akanji. The defender from Winterthur impressed everywhere with his strength and technique. He doesn’t need 80 championship matches to get into the Bundesliga through Winterthur and Basel. But he took a big leap when he moved from Dortmund to Manchester City.

Without the adjustment period that other players often need to get used to coach Pep Guardiola’s star system, Akanji quickly established himself as a key figure at the world’s best club. . The Winterthur resident, who has shown himself to be a clever calculator in the sporting context, was instrumental in creating the best season in the club’s history: Manchester City won the Champions League, the championship and Cup last spring.

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Akanji is only the third Swiss after Stéphane Chapuisat (1997) and Stephan Lichtsteiner (2015) to appear in the Champions League final (1-0 against Inter Milan). This season too, the 28-year-old is among a star group without any weaknesses, despite internal competition with defenders such as Ruben Dias, Nathan Aké, Kyle Walker, John Stones and Josko Gvardiol is huge.

Akanji has not missed a match for the national team since November last year. At the World Cup in Qatar, as well as in the first two finals he participated in, he was on the field every minute.