12 months ago, Phil Foden was at the top of the world and created the Premier League Player of the Year Award and had just fired his side of Manchester City on a fourth consecutive league title.
The then 23-year-old had scored a brace against West Ham on the last day-one in the upper corner of 35 meters and the world was finally his oyster. The euros with England. Hope for another Treble. The rest.
Except that it was not possible. Foden started every match for England but struggled in Germany. He would have a slow start of the season with City and tolerate a campaign light years of his last. It was all, simply, going wrong.
Earlier this season, Foden blamed 'mental fatigue' for his bad form. “I just have a few weeks off without playing football and I clearly can't get it right now,” he said. 'It's a difficult situation for me with the internationals around the corner.
'It is something that we have to speak with the club and the national team to see if it is better to rest and get my ankle completely 100 percent to support how I want it.
“I just don't know, it's a conversation to have a conversation and we'll see what happens.”
Now he has his wish. Foden has been omitted from Thomas Tuchel's second English team on the back of fatigue and an ankle injury and will be able to enjoy some free time for the Club World Cup with City next month.
That could mean more time at home with his family. Still only 24, Foden has three children – a son born in 2019, a daughter born in 2021 and born another child during Euro 2024.
His long -term girlfriend Rebecca Cooke, is considered 'the ultimate Wag'.
Cooke got out with Foden for a team dinner earlier this week, in which the indigenous stockport participated in the teammates of Foden for City Great Kevin De Bruyne's Leaving Party in Manchester.
Rebecca, dressed in completely black, chose an in -depth, sleeveless jumpsuit that showed off her cleavage, weakened central reef and Golden Tan, while Rebecca also wore a big smile as he posed for photos with her boyfriend with a football player.
Their most recent appearance came after the couple gave rise to engagement rumors when Rebecca was seen in a large diamond ring on her ring finger in February.
At that time it was reported that the Premier League star Rebecca brought away on a romantic trip to Paris for New Year's Eve, where he reportedly suggested.
On photos, Rebecca – who has been at Phil since they are both teenagers, tried to hide the big ring while they are on their way. However, nothing has been confirmed – and it has not always been rosy.
In 2022, Foden had a bust with Cooke on a beach after looking at his phone.
Cooke shouted, “Do you think I have ad ***?” Before you leave the beach club in Corfu, adding: “We can't take you anywhere, this always happens.” Video showed Rebecca who screamed against Foden when the couple followed two bouncers steps to a club on Glyfada Beach and her thumb poked at the winger.
A holiday maker said: 'I think it had to do with other women. What it seemed was that he refused photos, but when women came to him, it was different. '
It was also not the first time he was involved in a public spit. In 2022, Foden's mother, Claire Rowlands, seemed to be beaten after she and her son were verbally abused in a corridor in the AO -Arena of Manchester during a boxing event with the head of Amir Khan and Kell Brook.
In January 2024, Rowlands was meanwhile kicked out of a nightclub and put in handcuffs after he had hit a hat of the head of a fellow party party.
The footballer's mother had enjoyed a night out with friends and ended up with the downing of shots of Wodka and Tequila before she showed off her 'party trick' to add a man's hat, it was told that the magistrates of Llandudno Magistraten was told.
It all came to a highlight earlier this year when Rowlands was the target of fans of Manchester United, with sections of supporters who are chants that Rowlands is an 's ** g'.
But within her family, she is in force for football star Foden and his four brothers and sisters Callum, Kenzi, Lois and Avayah, who were raised together on a larger estate of Manchester Council. Now Foden lives great, after recently moved a £ 3 million mansion in Prestbury, Cheshire, after a raw party led to the police being called.
Foden also drew the wrong type of newspaper heads in 2020 when, in addition to Mason Greenwood, he invited girls to the English team hotel in Reykjavik, Iceland.
The couple made agreements with an Icelandic model and her boyfriend to come to the official team hotel, which was under strict Quarantaine control.
Foden and Greenwood were immediately cast out of the team of England by manager Gareth Southgate, and Lara Clausen told Mail Online that she slept with the midfielder with the midfielder only a few hours after he made his debut for the Three Lions with the midfielder, without knowing about his girlfriend and young son.
If everything is said and done, however, £ 200,000 a week and a family that loves you is not that bad. A journey to Barcelona to play Andorra and a homes -friendly against Senegal are not exactly De Be Allen and End Allen.
A Foden on fire is what is best for him, Manchester City and England. This season he is so far away from the flames. But it seems that the Spirit is just as important as resting the body.
Foden will always have houses in the city and England teams if he wants them. It would help him if he played well – and the rest could be the trigger for him to do that exactly.