Mum Claire described the young Phil as ‘the cheapest kid ever...no games, no toys, nothing, just a football.’
"Phil Foden, he's one of our own" goes the chant that now regularly rings around the Etihad Stadium. Manchester City's former boy wonder, who was once lovingly nicknamed 'the Stockport Iniesta', a nod to the Barcelona legend, has become a superstar in his own right.
Last summer, when Kevin De Bruyne limped out of the Champions League final, it was Foden who stepped into the breach. On the biggest of all stages, the 23-year-old put in an assured performance to get City over the line, and beat Inter Milan 1-0 to secure the club's status as Champions of Europe for the first time.
It completed a historic treble for the Blues, who picked up the Premier League title and FA Cup just weeks earlier. This season he is once again spearheading the club's push for glory scoring 11 goals and registering eight assists in all competitions.
It has been a meteoric rise for Foden since he made his debut for the club in a Champions League game against Feyenoord in November 2017.
Philip Walter Foden was born on May 28, 2000, to parents Phil Foden Snr and Claire Rowlands. He is one of five siblings - Callum, who is three years older, and younger siblings Kenzi, Lois, and Avayah.
He became known as Ronnie to family and friends, after his nan suggested it as a nickname to avoid the confusion of sharing his own father’s name.
Phil Snr and Callum were actually United fans. However, Claire and the rest of his family are City fans, with Phil quickly adopting his mum's love of the Blues.
The family lived in an end-terraced house on Grenville Street in Edgeley, in central Stockport, just a stone's throw from Stockport County's Edgeley Park ground. Phil would spend his hours playing football in a nearby car park.
Mum Claire said he was ‘the cheapest kid ever’, telling The Daily Telegraph his childhood was: ‘No games, no toys, nothing, just a football.’
Phil went to Bridgehall Primary School, nestled in the middle of a huge housing estate on the opposite side of the railway tracks to Edgeley, in neighbouring Adswood.
It was there he first came to the attention of his beloved Blues, when the head of City’s junior academy Terry John put on an event at the school. Foden said in 2022: "They say ‘things happen for a reason’ and I believe in that because I wasn’t even meant to train that day.
"They were training the under-6s and I think I might have only been four at the time and they asked the school if they had anyone else who could play and my PE teacher said ‘yeah we have this little guy who is pretty good.' So they brought me out for individual training and then gave me a card to give to my parents and I have been there ever since!"
Foden's former coach Steve Eyre, said he was always a shining light in the City's youth set-up. “Phil was nobody’s secret. You could walk across into the Dome at Platt Lane at four o’clock to watch a hundred boys training and spot him straight away, amongst the crowd," Steve said.
“The first time I saw him he was like a beacon," he went on. "He was something different, and still is now, in the Premier League. There were loads of kids with enthusiasm but there was just something a bit special about Phil. I think he’s the best young player that I’ve ever seen with the ball at his feet. And I said that when he was ten."
City linked Foden up with local junior club Reddish Vulcans, to give him a taste of competitive football at an early age, and he became part of their all-conquering junior outfit.
His coach there, Steve Williams, said: “At six, seven, eight years old, you often play against kids who have never played football before, and a good player can stand out. But Phil stood out against the best players – we won everything
"Against the best junior clubs from Liverpool, who attracted Everton and Liverpool youngsters, and against local clubs like Fletcher Moss, who had young United lads like Marcus Rashford, Phil was always the best player on the pitch – and that was in every single game he played."
But Phil's stay at Vulcans was short and sweet and, as soon as he was eight he was snapped up by City’s academy. Landing him was seen as a big coup for City at the time. United and Liverpool also wanted him, but City had already captured his heart and impressed his family – to the point that he did not even try other academies.
Foden spent one year at Stockport Academy, in Cheadle Heath, just a short walk from Edgeley. However, after Year 7, he left and was enrolled at the prestigious St Bede's College.
City run a programme which sees all their young academy hopefuls given the option of scholarships at the historic private Roman Catholic school in Whalley Range, where annual fees range from £8,000 to £11,000 a year.
Like other pupils, he had to sit an entrance exam but, once a student, along with other members of the city academy, which included the likes of Jadon Sancho, he was given a bespoke programme to allow him to study the essential subjects and chosen topics, as well as ensuring time was put aside for training.
He was named on the bench for a Champions League game against Celtic in December 2016. However, his real footballing breakthrough came the following year when he first helped England win the Under-17s World Cup in the summer of 2017. He won the 'Golden Ball' award for the best player and was named as the BBC's Young Sports Personality of the Year.
In November he came off the bench against Feyenoord for his pro debut. He took squad number 47 in honour of his grandad Walter, who was 47 when he died. He wears the number now and has it tattooed on his neck.
In 2018 he became the youngest recipient of a Premier League winner's medal. In 2019, he won a second Premier League and became the club's youngest-ever goalscorer in the UEFA Champions League, and is the youngest English player to both start a match and score in the knockout stages of the competition.
It was around this time that Pep Guardiola described him as the 'most talented player I have ever seen as a footballer or manager' - quite the statement coming from the man who oversaw Lionel Messi’s rise at Barcelona. In 2021 and 2022, Foden was named as the Premier League Young Player of the Season and the PFA Young Player of the Year.
He now has 31 senior caps for England. But his international career got off to an unfortunate start when in September 2020, after making his debut against Iceland, he and teammate Mason Greenwood were sent home.
Foden admitted breaching Covid restrictions in place at the time after allegations that the pair had invited girls back to the team hotel.
The player issued a 'full apology', saying he had made a 'poor decision' and would 'learn a valuable lesson from this error in judgment.'
However he was a key part of the squad that reached the final of the Euros in 2021, and the quarter-finals of the 2022 World Cup.
Off the field, in January 2019, Foden's life changed even further, when, aged 18, he became a father for the first time after his long-term girlfriend Rebecca Cooke, gave birth to their son Ronnie.
“I was there for the birth. I walked out of the room, gave it a little tear, and then went back in like nothing happened,” Foden told City's website afterwards.
“I’m not one for crying in front of people. I like to be on my own, but I was there in the room, watched it happen and it was a special moment. Your life changes. There’s no free time." However, he said he had 'enjoyed every minute of it.'
He told Esquire, whose front cover he appeared on in 2022, that he believed being a parent helps him remain 'focused.'
“There’s so much going on out there for a young footballer like myself," he said. "The hardest thing is being in bed early and ready to train the next day when there’s all these distractions around. I think that’s where the dedication comes in.”
Ronnie, now aged five, has become a star in his own right. Foden regularly brings him out onto the pitch for trophy celebrations, including after last year's treble win where he took selfies with Erling Haaland and sat on his dad's shoulders as they serenaded the match-winner singing 'Rodri's On Fire' to the tune of Gala's 90s hit 'Freed From Desire'.
The family has set up his own dedicated Instagram account which has a whopping four million followers. Phil and Rebecca now also have a second child, a daughter who was born in July 2021..
Other than fatherhood and football, Foden's other love in life is fishing. He missed City's 2018 title celebrations due to a pre-arranged fishing trip with his dad.
He also regularly posts pictures of some of his impressive catches, the biggest of which to date has been a 130lb catfish. “I was probably about six or seven and my dad had a fishing rod of his dad’s and said we should go and try it out," he said to the City website.
"I fell in love with it and we ended up going every weekend. I still remember my first catch. It wasn’t very big, I was just learning, but it’s the excitement of when you get one for the first time.
"I think that’s the buzz that makes you want to go again, but it’s also a chance to chill and relax and to spend time with my dad. I think it’s really good after games when you have to rest your legs and I just find it enjoyable." His partner Rebecca has also revealed he loves collecting the Panini football stickers.
Following his rise to stardom, Foden, who signed a bumper new contract worth a reported 200,000 a week in 2022, left Stockport.
He and his partner moved into a mansion, said to be worth around £2.85million, in Prestbury, in Cheshire's 'golden triangle' popular with footy and showbiz stars. Whilst he is also said to have bought his parents a six-bed gated house nearby, worth a reported £3 million.
However, on more than one occasion he has pictured and videoed having a kickabout with kids close to where he grew up, where there is now a mural of him painted on a wall.
“I’ve still got family around Stockport, so I go and visit sometimes, and kids are just starstruck to see me. It’s quite strange because I was one of those kids and was just the same as them" he said.
“They look up to you, so it’s just to give something back because I used to play there growing up. It’s good to play with them and see a smile on their face. I just want to be a good role model for them.”
In December last year, Foden, now 23, announced he had passed his driving test and posed proudly with his certificate. Asked by one interviewer why he hadn't done it sooner he said: "I just never thought I needed to do it, do you know what I mean? It was probably laziness to be honest."
On the pitch, on top of the Treble, Foden has helped City bag the UEFA Super Cup and the Club World Cup in December. That was Foden's 14th major honour. That has led some experts to predict he could eventually eclipse Ryan Giggs and become the most decorated British footballer of all time.
He is also by many as pivotal to England's chance of winning this summer's European Championships as the Three Lions chase a first trophy since the 1966 World Cup.