Zack Steffen has taken confidence from his first matches for Manchester City as he settles into a new role providing competition for Ederson. Pep Guardiola selected Steffen for the first home game of the season, a league cup game against Bournemouth, and the keeper kept his first clean sheet against Burnley in the next round of the competition with those matches helping confidence.
Zack Steffen said “It was obviously amazing to make my debut and play two games and those were my first games in nine months so I really needed them for confidence and just to know I can still do it. I’d definitely say in the games that I’ve played I’ve gained some respect, at least some confidence. It was very surreal, nerve wracking but an awesome [first] day. It was nice that I had an intro in July training with the goalkeeper coaches and met most of the guys when I was here so that was nice to know the facility, know how they worked, know what the guys were like. Going into training the first day I remember driving in and it just hit me that i was going into the Man City training ground as a player, part of the team, a team I’ve been watching for years on the television with my dad so it was a really awesome day. A couple days into it, we were doing a shooting drill and I made this one save from Raheem [Sterling] that I was like ‘Okay I’m getting used to the speed and all this stuff’. It does take some time to get used to the speed and especially after being out for six or seven months it definitely took me time to get used to everything but I’m feeling good now.”
Steffen, 25, was identified as Claudio Bravo’s replacement and signed for the club in 2019 before heading to Bundesliga side Dusseldorf last season. However, after a fine start there the US international didn’t feature beyond December after succumbing to a knee injury that had been troubling him for some time. That did not alter City’s plans to head into this season with Steffen as the No.2, with Scott Carson signing on another season-long loan from Derby to continue as another back-up and youngster Aro Muric heading out to Girona for the year Some introductory work at the training ground at the back end of last season has helped the former Columbus Crew star to settle at his parent club, and he now feels he is up to speed with the squad and in good condition following his issues last season.
