Vincent Kompany and I speak the same language in football, says Burnley assistant Craig Bellamy

It’s late when Craig Bellamy returns to his rented apartment. He opens the door and ushers me in. The living room is spartan. No pictures, no decorations, no fuss, no mess. Light and clean surfaces, two sofas, a flat screen TV on the wall.

“I’d offer you tea, coffee or some food,” Bellamy says cheerfully, staring up at the red taillights of Manchester traffic inching in the dark, “but I don’t have anything.”

Bellamy lives at the Burnley training ground. That is his house in the north. This is just a place to sleep. Eat, sleep, football, repeat. It’s always been that way with him, first as a player for Liverpool, Manchester City and a host of top-flight teams, and now as a respected manager whose reputation is rising for the job he’s doing as Vincent Kompany’s number 2. in the club that escapes with the Championship this season.

“I’m happy,” Bellamy says. ‘I love what I’m doing. As long as I’m in soccer, I’m fine. Out of life, then there is a problem. My playing career is gone but I only see myself in football.

‘I love football people. I can tell if you are not a soccer person. I feel more comfortable being around players. We speak the same language. I feel safe with them. That is my environment. It’s all I’m comfortable with and it’s all I want to be comfortable with.’

Some may be confused by the evolution of 43-year-old Bellamy from Premier League terrible boy, a scourge of referees and the archetype of a player who could start a fight on an empty pitch to a cerebral, empathetic and fiercely motivated manager. who has helped transform Burnley into an attractive, agile, possession-based team that can also compete with opponents physically.

But the truth is that Bellamy has always been a great student of the game. He has always had a great desire to learn and teach. Even when he was a player, he regularly traveled to the Netherlands to study the Dutch clubs. He is a Johan Cruyff devotee and has an encyclopedic knowledge of European soccer.

When Kompany, Bellamy’s former City teammate, took over at Anderlecht in 2020, Bellamy went with him. He overflows with evangelism when he talks about the work Kompany and his staff are doing on Turf Moor.

Some see them as an odd couple; the calm, serious and courteous Belgian with his mastery of business, and the fierce Welshman who lashed out at authority and thrived on confrontation.

“Actually, we have similar backgrounds,” says Bellamy, “so we had a common work ethic from the beginning. He speaks five different languages. I barely speak one. We’re opposites in many things in life, but we speak the same language in football. We don’t believe we are geniuses. We are humble in our way of viewing football.

‘It’s the work, the dedication, the hours you put in, the meetings you attend. I want to emphasize that. It’s all about hard work.

‘I still feel a little behind in his work ethic. Hard work. I work 12 or 14 hour days but Vinny is phenomenal. I’m still in awe of him. I don’t know when he sleeps. Oh really. I don’t know when he has time. If he sleeps three hours a night, I’d be surprised. He works constantly. He has never had money to spend before. Now he can buy the odd player for a couple of million. People say that we have bought the league. Actually? We have spent £22m on 15 players.

‘So those people are crazy. Look at the Watford team. One player is worth more than our entire squad. They didn’t sell anyone and still bought (players). norwich? Do you see them selling? When we started the preseason, we barely had anyone. The players we have here now amaze me every day.

Bellamy and Kompany, the former City captain, face a reunion of old men in the FA Cup quarter-final against Pep Guardiola’s side at the Etihad on Saturday, but first they had a game at Hull City — they won 3- 1—and Bellamy embarks on a stream of consciousness about plans for formations and pockets and gridirons and overloads and breaking lines and the benefits of a lopsided 4-4-2. Sometimes, he feels like listening to Dennis Hopper’s photographer in Apocalypse Now landing fractionally in space.

“We’re more than committed to one style of play,” Bellamy says. It’s all about why we do it. I know that Guardiola has had a big impact on Vinny. He has had a huge impact on everyone. How can you love football and not love this human being? How can you not love what Guardiola has given us in the last 15 years, that Barcelona team and everything else he has created?

“We also love Cruyff, obviously. If I could have a Cruyff statue on our training ground, I would. That’s how important I think it is for football. Vinny feels that way too. From the effect he’s had, he’s the most important man ever involved in football.

Was Messi better as a player? Yes. Was Maradona better? Yes. But Cruyff was not very far from them and his effect on the game has surpassed that of anyone.

“It’s because of the way I saw football, the way I played, what I expected from the angles of the body, being open, not blocking, moving the ball, the Dream Team, the way I played, it was a He is a model of what a super is: He is an intelligent footballer and he knew how to transmit that to the appearance of a team.It was a period in the game that left a lasting effect.

I would say there were three. There was Cruyff. I also greatly admire César Luis Menotti. He was an amazing coach and had a huge impact on the game. So, I look at Arrigo Sacchi. They were pioneers. You see their football and you think: ‘The game has changed’. Then Pep’s Barcelona team did it again.

‘How do you combine everything? Being the top scorers is not enough if you don’t have a clean sheet. Being good with the ball means nothing if you’re not good without it.

“We study Diego Simeone’s methods more than anyone else’s. Many training exercises are very Simeone. We’re getting a lot of applause for the way we played, but look at us without the ball. That’s where we’ve been the best, so far anyway. We still haven’t achieved anything yet.

Not yet, but they are getting close. The victory over Hull put Burnley within 13 points of Sheffield United, second in the championship, and 19 points behind Middlesbrough, third. Three more wins and they will be sure to secure an immediate return to the Premier League.

“Other people may talk about promotion,” Bellamy says, “but until I’m sure, we’re not going to think about it.

‘Our pressure, the intensity, winning duels, second ball, first ball, second ball. People think you have to be a certain size to do that. it’s a myth. You can be as small as anything. It’s all about whether you’re agile. Can you react?

‘We have leaders on this team. They always cheer each other on and we were lucky to have inherited some of that spirit from when Sean Dyche was here.

‘Sean Dyche left a legacy that will never be forgotten. We wanted his period to be remembered. We have different ways of working with him, but what he did gave us the opportunity to come here. His name is high for us. There is no right in what we are doing or wrong in what he was doing. His legacy is intact with the club. The core values ​​of the club that he left will always be there.’

Bellamy really wants to get back to the city. He loved his time at the Etihad, right at the start of the Abu Dhabi revolution at the club, and if he had some highly publicized disagreements with Robinho over the Brazilian’s lack of work ethic, he admired other high-profile arrivals during that time. Like Carlos Tevez.

“Tevez was an absolute warrior,” says Bellamy. “I loved him as a player and I liked him as a man. We know how difficult it is going to be against City, but in every game you have to think that you can win. We know the machine is Man City. They’ll say nice things about Vinny but they’ll be sure they’re going to beat us. They want to turn us around. There will be no old friends act.

‘Do they have more tools than anyone else we’ve faced? Definitely. They also have weaknesses, yes, but fewer than most. That is the challenge. They are an incredible team, an incredible manager, an incredible club.

‘What I have seen in terms of football when I have seen them play has been remarkable. The way they have played too. Pep was told, ‘You can’t play that kind of football here, it won’t work’, when he first came here. They then went on to win the league with a record number of points soon after. It’s been an incredible time to see a true artist at work and Guardiola is that.

But we will try. Look, Burnley have been a godsend to me. Working here is amazing.

I am in a chain of trainers, physios, sports scientists, kitchen staff, everyone in that club contributes the same as me and that is the honest truth because it cannot be done any other way.

‘If the coaching staff and the players work more hours, that means that the kitchen staff have to work more hours. Everyone has caught up. All.

“The manager is above the rest of us, obviously, but I am the same as the rest of the group below him. Vinny is on a different level. I’d love to take the credit, but I just do what I’m told.’

Bellamy is one of that rare breed who walked away from playing without bitterness or regret for what he accomplished on the court. There is nothing he feels he could or should have done.

He suffered knee injuries, but within that context, he’s glad he brought out the best in himself. And now he throws himself into coaching with the same relentlessness and enthusiasm that he embraced as a player.

“Everything I wanted to achieve in football as a player, I achieved,” he says. I would have loved to win leagues and cups, but I wasn’t good enough for that. He was good but he wasn’t like David Villa.

‘There was the next group and I was a little below that. If you want to challenge to get into the Champions League, I’m your man. But if you want to win the Champions League, you will need someone else.

I am very grateful for what I had and now I have to improve my life in the outside world.

“I don’t get fully involved in football because there is a life out there too. Football protected me from all that, and when I got out of it I saw the world and part of it I didn’t like very much and part of it I loved. However, soccer is still my survival mechanism. It has to be soccer.