Yahoo Sports Kyle Walker interview: I remember seeing Chelsea players after losing the final – it killed me
Kyle Walker can remember the feeling like it was yesterday. Pitching up at St George’s Park, just days after losing the Champions League final to Chelsea in Porto, to see England team-mates Mason Mount, Reece James and Ben Chilwell still basking in the warm afterglow of victory. –
“I didn’t really have much time to get over it as I had to tune back into England and go and compete in a tournament for my country,” the Manchester City defender reflected this week. “It was hard seeing all the Chelsea boys there. You say congratulations to them because they are your team-mates now but it was tough.”
The Euros would not bring any solace either. Five weeks later, Walker was collecting another runners-up medal after England’s defeat, on penalties, to Italy.
“So I had to pick myself up again and get ready for the next season,” he added. “That’s football. It’s part of your career that everything is not going to go swimmingly well. I wasn’t playing at the start of this season but things change in football. This will be 90 minutes of football on Saturday where we have to make sure we are winning at all costs.”
Suffice to say, when Walker joins up with the England squad for the Euro 2024 qualifying matches against Malta and North Macedonia next week, he will be hoping to do so as a Champions League winner this time around.
Inter Milan stand between City and an elusive first European Cup, the Treble and a place among the immortals and Walker simply cannot stomach the idea of walking up the steps at the Ataturk Stadium in Istanbul to collect another losers’ medal.
“I think you always have to go through setbacks, those nearly games, those losses,” he says. “Even with the national team, each step of the way we have got to a semi-final [at the 2018 World Cup], a final, and hopefully big things are around the corner.
“I think all big teams have to go through setbacks to actually maybe give you the little bit of desire where you want to actually turn that [around] - seeing the winners walk up the steps and change that so you are walking up [as winners] and people are clapping you.”
If anything, though, Walker is convinced that bitter experience against Chelsea will serve him and others well as they prepare to face Inter. “We’ve been there,” he said. “When you walk out, hear the anthem playing and see the cup - [it’s like] you are not really expecting it before, you think ‘Oh my gosh, it’s actually happening now’.
“Whereas now, you can walk out and you know you’ve been here before, you’ve experienced these things before, and it is just about playing your football and trusting the people around you. Erling [Haaland] is popping up with the goals. Kevin [De Bruyne] is popping up with the assists. So I think we will be all right.”
However, there is one thing Walker is still uncomfortable with - 8pm kick-offs. “I’m 33 now so I wouldn’t say I get nervous but I hate 8 o’clock games because it is the wait of all day to go to the game. I’d rather it kicked off at three o’clock and then it is done then.
“Obviously there are a little bit of nerves but I think that’s good - you just have to channel them in the right direction to make you perform well. But it is more excitement than nerves.”
How does he kill the time and not allow all that nervous energy to get the better of him? “Eat and sleep,” Walker replies. “Obviously you need to get your nutrition in and move around the hotel … but it is about preparing so you are mentally fresh for the game. What else can you do? You can’t bring the game forward.
“I just have to deal with it and have a little nap in the afternoon. But then I don’t sleep after the game! It’s Sod’s Law isn’t it?”
A minor back complaint kept Walker out of training on Tuesday but he has no doubts he will be fit for Saturday. He exudes energy and confidence and, for a moment, you have to remind yourself that this is the same player who, less than two months ago, was not really in the picture and being openly questioned by his manager. “This shape of three at the back and two in the middle, he cannot do it,” Pep Guardiola said in early April as he questioned Walker’s compatibility with his 3-2-4-1 system.
Whether Guardiola’s unhappiness over an alleged incident in a bar had any bearing on Walker’s fall from grace is hard to know for certain. But the defender had started just three of 11 games leading up to the FA Cup semi-final against his boyhood club Sheffield United on April 22 and doubts were being cast about his City future. The transformation, then, speaks volumes for the fighter in Walker and it is not a leap to suggest he may now even be playing the best football of his storied career, typified by the way he handled Vincius Jr in the semi-final against Real Madrid.
“He’s my manager and I have to listen to him - if his opinion is right or wrong, it’s not my decision,” Walker said of Guardiola’s remarks. “He’s the boss of this club and makes the decision about who goes on to the field and I have to accept that - right or wrong - and get my head down.
“Do my extra work in the gym and make sure I am putting in performances on the training field so when I am called upon, he’s not saying: ‘That’s why I’m dropping you, because you are not playing well’.
“When I got the chance again, I tried to do what I do - play good football and defend well and hopefully that will give him the confidence to carry on picking me in the big games.
“Do I think I can overcome certain things when the going gets tough? Can I dig my heels in the ground and then keep moving? I think I can do that. That was my upbringing. It has channelled me into the path where I am now.”
While Walker insists the Champions League should not “define” what City have achieved over the past six seasons, he accepts they must win it to be regarded among the great sides. “It helps massively to say that we can be put in that category of probably one of the best Premier League teams of all time,” he said.
“You don’t win five Premier Leagues in six years if you are not a good team. We kind of know we are a good team but to be recognised globally as one of the best you need to win the Champions League. We are not beating around the bush with that.
“We know this is now a great opportunity and we have a second chance definitely. We need to put right the wrongs we did against Chelsea.”
The knowledge that victory over Inter would also see City become only the second English club, after Manchester United in 1998/99, to win the Treble merely heightens the motivation, according to Walker. “I think that United team, along with the Arsenal Invincibles [in 2003/04], are probably up there with the best Premier League teams of all time,” he added.”
“What us and Liverpool - to a certain extent - have done … I think we should be in consideration but they have got the big Champions League trophy that we can never say we have got. So, for us to be in contention of talking around that, we need to go and pick this up.”
