• Premier League

City's new £200m complex built to attract the world's best

Pablo Zabaleta says he would rather be at Manchester City's new training complex than at his home © Manchester City

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Manchester City have formally opened their £200 million training complex, the City Football Academy (CFA), which they hope is the best in world sport.

The CFA, which has been built across the road from the Etihad Stadium on a brownfield site in east Manchester, contains 16.5 football pitches, including the biggest artificial indoor pitch in the United Kingdom.

Ten of those pitches have undersoil heating, eight are floodlit and one, the Academy Stadium where the Elite Development Squad and the women's team will play, has a capacity of 7,000.

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City examined 70 different training facilities in various sports across Australia, Europe and the United States and considered 19 design options before settling on their final plan.

More than 450 players will train at the CFA every week, from the under-six age group through to Manuel Pellegrini's first team.

Defender Pablo Zabaleta was impressed, saying: "I've never seen anything like this. The club will benefit 100 percent from this. They have everything here to be a good professional.

"You couldn't ask for more. We have everything here, even down to recovery after the games. This is massive, it's brilliant. As a player, you come here each day thinking 'I'd rather be here than my house!' I could spend eight or nine hours here.

"Top players always want to train at good facilities. If you have to sign players to improve our squad, they are probably going to be big players coming from top teams in Europe and they have to see that City is one of the top clubs in the world. Having these facilities just makes it special.

"You can see the commitment from the owners. They've made a great investment to make Manchester City one of the top teams. This is something great."

The first-team building includes four-star hotel accommodation for the players, who stay at the CFA the night before games, and besides bedrooms, it incorporates a players' lounge with a big-screen television and a pool table.

There is also a 56-seat auditorium where they can watch clips from training, which are recorded on a weatherproof mobile cart that gives Pellegrini the chance to use instant video analysis.

There are three gyms, allowing for strength-and-conditioning work, pilates and technical skills and a hydro-therapy area featuring six different pools of water at temperatures ranging from four degrees to 36 degrees.

The Academy Building also includes accommodation to house scholars, while there is a timeline with a commemorative disk to mark each player who has come through City's youth system to play for the first team.

A 190-metre bridge has been built over Alan Turing Way to connect the CFA to the Etihad Stadium City used an 80-acre site, of which 5.5 acres were donated to the local community for a sixth-form college, leisure centre and swimming pool, while 29 hours a week on the pitches have been allocated to college, community and disability teams.

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