Raheem Sterling is living his best life at Manchester City

Raheem Sterling runs like someone making fun of their friend for being too chicken to do something. When he’s jogging, he tucks his arms by his side, which really exemplifies the look, and when he’s sprinting, he holds them out as if he’s scared and trying to fly away.

Sterling never takes off into the air, but he runs so fast that he seems to glide on top of the grass. It’s amusing to see his little feet scampering about while his upper body is pushed out ahead of them and his little baby chicken arms are dangling hopelessly by its side.

He looks like the stereotype of the soft, prancing soccer player. Which makes it all the more wonderful that he is so dangerous on the field.

Sterling is deceptively strong, in the typical way that short players are. He often uses his low center of gravity to turn bigger defenders. Many times when he receives the ball under pressure, he backs into and under the defender who tries to go over and around him to get the ball. That eagerness ends up being the downfall of that defender. Sterling makes sure to keep the ball out of sight and when the defender jumps to try to get in front of him in search of it, Sterling shifts his weight to the side and then takes the ball forward and beyond them.

This season has been the best of Sterling’s young career, and he produced his best moment of it on Wednesday against Southampton. With the last kick of the ball, Sterling curled this gorgeous game-winner into the top corner for his 12th goal in just 18 games.

Best of all, he’s evolved into the Premier League’s most clutch player. Just look at when he scores his goals.

Sterling is persistent. Like a pest. Like a fly that drives you to the edge of insanity because you can’t seem to swat it, and at some point you consider just destroying the entire house to kill it. On his first chance in City’s 4-2 win over Napoli, he met the ball on the run outside and touched it into the box. He was greeted by a strong, standing tackle that should have taken the ball away. But Sterling kept moving forward and swiping at the ball with his feet so that it squirmed out to him. Before he could jot his little feet enough to get the balance to shoot, the ball was finally cleared.

He created another chance soon after in the right channel when he went one-on-one with a defender. He tried to run past his men, but the defender tackled it well. Still, Sterling kept swiping at the ball and it came out to him on the other side. He didn’t beat the defender by dribbling past him, but rather by not giving up.

There was a third chance that combined his persistence with his strength. When tried to go between two defenders in the 46th minute. He went beyond them but the ball was taken from him. He reached back in the confusion after to get the ball again, lunging in with his left foot to repel one of the defenders. A third defender came and Sterling pushed his body into him to shield the ball. Then he cut the ball inside with his right foot as a fourth defender slid by, anticipating a shot. When he did shoot, the shot was blocked out for a corner. The entire sequence was a testament to how bothersome he is to defenses. He gets tackled and still ends up with the ball so often that it would be reductive to call it lucky, it’s that he never gives up on it. It has to be annoying to deal with.

Then of course, he’s fast as hell.

During the counterattack before Sergio Agüero scored City’s third goal, Sterling was running right along Leroy Sané on the right side. Most players would be in an all-out sprint in that buildup, but Sterling looked as if he was jogging the whole thing and was actually pacing himself as to not outrun everybody else. It was like watching the end of The Incredibles where Mr. Incredible has to tell Dash to slow down and finish second in his track meet as to not give it away that he has superpowers.

The same happened for City’s fourth goal, where he just saunters up the pitch so quickly from a deep starting position that he was able to get behind the defender undetected.

An unexpected thing about his goal is that he hit the ball accurately, and with his laces as well. He has a natural tendency to hit the ball as if he’s afraid to hurt it, but that’s changed a lot this season.

Striking the ball well isn’t his only improvement this year, he’s just an overall better player. His passing, usage of space, interplay, scoring, and general understanding of the game are better and they’re still getting better at this point where he’s scoring a goal a game.

This is the same player that many thought would be benched when Pep Guardiola came to City. That he would be out of his depth. That players like Jordon Ibe were more talented and had a better career outlook than him.

Photo by Francesco Pecoraro/Getty Images

The truth about sports, and with young players especially, is that there’s a lot that is unknown. Anyone that asserts confidently what a player will be in the future is lying, simply because no one can see into the future. All you can judge is the past and what you see in front of you.

What Sterling was at Liverpool, and in his beginning at City, was a really great young player. What he is now, is a player that’s better than what he was before. Soccer is littered with great young players who failed to live up to their potential. Some of that is due to the players’ internal faults, others to outside circumstances. There’s an incredible amount of different reasons why great talents never become more than promises, but Arsène Wenger was right in 2009 when he said that you need a great environment to nurture young players:

"If you have a child who is a good musician, what is your first reaction? It is to put [them] into a good music school, not in an average one. So why should that not happen in football?"

At Manchester City, Sterling is learning the game from one of the best managers in the world, who is as concerned with using him in the most effective ways as he is with maximizing the player’s potential. Sterling is also in a team where there’s so many playmakers, and the style of play is designed for anyone to be the playmaker, that he’s able to become who he will be in relative comfort. Not that a title challenge is too comfortable, but it’s not the end of the world if he has a bad game. He also gets to profit from the efforts of his teammates without always having to be the creator himself. That’s the ideal situation for any promising player.

What Raheem Sterling will become is still undetermined. So many things can change. But what is evident so far is that his choice to go to City has worked out well for him and for the team. He’s playing for a team that’s challenging for the title, under a great manager, surrounded by world-class talent, with the protection to make mistakes and develop on his own timeline, which has led to him playing great and scoring goals at a rate that nobody expected.

Sterling is living every young player’s dream. He’s in the perfect environment to fulfill his potential. He’s growing, competing, and having fun. The scary thing about it is, that while he’s a great player now, there’s still so much that he can and hopefully will get better at.