After their career, many players reveal juicy anecdotes that they never dared to reveal at the time. This is the case of Micah Richards, a former Manchester City player who has become a real darling on TV shows in England. Alongside legends, Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer, on the podcast The Rest is Footballthe 35-year-old former right-back admitted to having had a drunken night before Cityzen coach Manuel Pellegrini called on him for a meeting that was, to say the least, unexpected. “I have just come back into the team and with (Manuel) Pellegrini you pretty much know if you are going to be left out or not”he begins.
“So I remember traveling somewhere, I don’t remember where we were going. But I know I’m not playing, I’m just coming back from an injury, I’m just getting over it. So we go back to the hotel, and normally they take all your alcohol out of the fridge. So I say to myself ‘I’m coming back from injury, I’m not going to play’. One, two, three… before you know it, I had at least 10 drinks!”. Micah Richards continues: “then I get a call in the morning, someone is injured. I’ve never been so nervous in my life! But people don’t know that you have a good relationship with the doctor, the physiotherapists and then a different relationship with the manager. So the doctor and physio always try to protect you if they can. The manager said to me: ‘are you playing or are you not playing?’. I just told the coach: ‘I’m not ready boss, my hamstrings aren’t good’ or something like that, but actually I told the doctor and the physio that ‘I have smoked last night, I have to find an excuse, I can’t be in the group, I can’t'”. In the end, the Englishman succeeds because he will not participate in the meeting, still drunk from the day before. Enough to make Lineker and Shearer laugh.
