JE M'APPELLE KALVIN - The Square Ball 23/6/22

Paris Summer

Written by: David Guile

There always comes a moment when the elephant in the room is impossible to ignore. You can try to carry on as normal if you like. At some point, though, you’re going to be forced to acknowledge that something is blocking the sunlight, there’s a random tusk poking you in the back and the smell of pachyderm shit is making your morning coffee less than enjoyable. It’s finally time to face up to the fact that Kalvin Phillips probably won’t be a Leeds United player for much longer.

That’s football, sadly. No matter how high you rise up the food chain there’s always going to be an apex predator waiting to cannibalise you while Jim White watches, gleefully narrating your club’s evisceration like a ghoulish David Attenborough. Call it the Law of the Jungle, or the Circle of Life, or whatever makes you feel better about it. At least it’s Manchester City this time, rather than Norwich.

At least we’ve all assumed it’s going to be City. A new name entered the picture at the weekend: Paris Saint-Germain, champions of France and plaything of Nasser El-Khelaifi, a man so rich that his bank balance resembles one of Phil Hay’s ‘GOOOOOOOOOOAL’ tweets. Whether the interest is genuine or simply a case of Andrea Radrizzani calling in a favour to force City’s hand, it has certainly made things more interesting. If it was up to me (which, at the time of writing, it’s not) Kalvin wouldn’t be going anywhere. But ask yourself, if Kalvin Phillips absolutely has to go, wouldn’t you rather see him go to PSG than Manchester City? And if not, what in the holy name of Gary McAllister is wrong with you?

I don’t know about you, but I’m going to need a bit of time to get over this particular departure. It feels like one of those that’s never quite going to heal — Batty to Blackburn, Smith to You-Know-Who, Hadi Sacko to whoever it was (that last one might just be me). When you’ve just gone through a break-up, amicable or not, the last thing you want to see is your ex arm-in-arm with someone else. City are probably the least worst domestic option, but I’d quite like to continue watching Match Of The Day without being pushed close to tears by something other than the dubious quality of our football. I don’t want to know what their fans — who will never love him like we do, regardless of success — think of him. Far better for him to skip the country entirely to give us a degree of separation.

Then there’s the destination: Paris. Kalvin Phillips, our Kalvin Phillips, calling the City of Light his home. It’s almost as mad as Marcelo Bielsa living in Wetherby. Just picture Kalvin dusting off his GCSE French for an interview (“Je m’appelle Kalvin et j’aime jouer au football avec mes amis Bill et Illan”) or pulling a face when someone orders escargots at a Michelin star restaurant. If that doesn’t make you smile, you’re already dead inside. Paris isn’t a bad place to be if you’re a 26 year old with money and a sense of adventure, and it certainly beats finding yourself stuck in Alderley Edge living next door to Sir Alex Whiskyface.

It’s a shame about the football club itself, a soulless husk fuelled by Qatari gas, but that seems to be the price of success nowadays. PSG might be part of a hideous trend of nouveau-riche clubs doing their level best to make football unaffordable for everyone, but they’re no worse than City in that regard, and were at least smart enough to distance themselves from the doomed Super League project. And if that’s not enough to convince you, just imagine the look on Marcelo Bielsa’s face when Kalvin Phillips, the player he shaped into a world class defensive fulcrum, lines up alongside Lionel Messi for the first time.

In truth, neither City nor PSG are a perfect option for Kalvin, but neither is staying put. I’m of the opinion that letting both Kalvin and Raphinha leave the club in the same summer would be asking for trouble, but it can’t be denied that last season represented a step backwards for Leeds, and that our development has not kept pace with Kalvin’s. Bielsa saw this day coming and tried to prepare us for it.

“One day he will stop playing for Leeds,” Bielsa said in September of last year. “And the way he does it will convert him to an idol forever. I have a feeling. It’s intuition. I’m sure he would only leave if he sees the link to the place he was born remains intact. He will know how to do this.”

That day now appears close at hand. Somewhere in Leeds, an exit video is being prepared. It will show a wild-haired teenager stabbing in a volley on his Elland Road debut and reacting with unrestrained glee. And then, in the space of maybe three and a half minutes, we’ll watch him grow (via several eye-catching haircuts) into the man he is today, and then there will be much dabbing-of-eyes and blaming-of-hayfever.

If this is it, I’m just glad we got the chance to watch Kalvin Phillips grow up. Phillips and Frazer Richardson aside, no recent academy graduate has remained with the club beyond their 26th birthday. Most of the O’Leary team were gone by the age of 24, to win trophies elsewhere. Whatever trophies Phillips goes on to win in what remains of his career, his first was lifted here in Leeds, and that means everything, both to us and to him.

City sold their soul and I’m not entirely sure PSG ever had one, but whoever employs Kalvin Phillips won’t just find themselves stronger on the pitch, they’ll also be richer in warmth, humanity and Yorkshire wit. Maybe they’ll value these things, and maybe they won’t. Either way, I hope they will know how lucky they are.