sport news Micah Richards spills the beans on fireworks at Man City, dislike of Capello ... trends now

Sportmail's Micah Richards has become one of the nations' most loved pundits in recent years.

On October 27, he will have a book published titled: 'The Game: Player. Pundit. Fan.' detailing some thrilling stories from his career both on the pitch.

From Carlos Tevez punching Vincent Kompany to hating Fabio Capello, the book truly has it all, and promises to bring laughs and gasps upon its release later this month.

MARIO GOT AWAY WITH MURDER

I opened the door to my house one night to find Mario Balotelli standing there with a load of fireworks, a fuse and a smile on his face.

Some players are kids, no matter how much they've cost or how many games they've played. Mario Balotelli was the definition of a kid. 

People have the wrong impression of Mario. We spent a lot of time together when he was at Manchester City — the club spent tens of millions of pounds on Mario and for some reason put me in charge of his behaviour.

We clicked: we were the same age, we had similar interests, we shared a sense of humour. He attracted more attention than anyone I played with other than David Beckham, he was just unapologetically himself and I loved that. 

He was authentic. He was real. We were so close that people used to call us twins, though probably not identical because I was better looking. Mario needed to be indulged and understood and steered in a certain direction. 

He got away with murder under Roberto Mancini because he knew he was talented enough to score a couple of goals in a derby or produce the assist — the only time he set up a goal in the Premier League for Manchester City — for Sergio Aguero to win the league. 

If a kid is talented enough, that's the sort of treatment they'll get. Up to a point.

We'd have so much money in the fines pot by the end of the year — to be honest, we'd have so much money by the second week of February — that we could give the staff a much-deserved bonus and have a pretty spectacular Christmas do.

There'd be £100,000 in there just from Mario being late. He didn't do it on purpose. He was just a bit dozy. He'd arrive on time for training, only to forget what time the meeting started or what room it was in. He'd be sitting somewhere else in the training ground, totally oblivious, and it would cost him a few thousand pounds.

Nobody wanted to go out with Balotelli, either. Not because he wasn't fun — a night out with him would obviously be a lot of fun — but because he was a risk factor.

It wasn't just that he was a law unto himself, unpredictable, almost dangerous, but because he was too high-profile. Everyone wanted to know what the bad boy of European football would do next.

People were watching his every move, and if you hang around with him, that means they'll be watching your every move, too. That money, that fame, that reputation: it was too much.

THE DAY BELLAMY BAITED BARRY

Craig Bellamy was a firebrand — the only person who ever made Gareth Barry lose his temper. It was Bellamy's first training session with City. He'd already chewed up and spat out Richard Dunne for making a mistake.

'No wonder we're always losing if you're the captain!' he shouted. 

A few minutes later, Barry didn't pass to him and Bellamy started ranting at him: you give me the ball when I tell you, you f****** this and that. Gareth Barry was as calm as they come, but he lost it. They squared up to each other.

Like good team-mates, we all stopped to watch, urging Barry to hit him. That was Bellamy, though. 

If a striker who was struggling for goals, or a young player who'd only made a couple of appearances for the first team, bowled up in an Audi R8 or a Bentley, Craig would very gently take them aside and scream: 'What the f*** are you driving that for? You've only scored twice in the last three months!' right in their faces.

He could be personal — he could be vicious — but it was because he had standards and he wanted to maintain them. We got used to him. Eventually.

WHEN NASRI AND MANCINI LOST IT

Samir Nasri was a big character. The best way to sum him up is to say that you'd really want him on your team, largely so that you didn't have to face him.

I've never met a man so dedicated to arguing with everyone, all of the time. I liked him for that. My mentality was similar. I'd never let anyone have a go at me. 

That's not always the ideal mix, of course: there was one game, at home against Norwich, where we managed to talk ourselves to the very edge of having a fight on the pitch.

I can't remember what it was about — I'm sure he was wrong, though — but all of a sudden, with 50,000 people watching, we were walking towards each other, shouting and bawling. At some point, we must have remembered where we were and left it, but it was a close-run thing.

A couple of days before the Manchester derby in 2011, Nasri had a falling-out with Mancini — the biggest argument I'd ever seen. Mancini had set out the team he wanted to play at Old Trafford and we were going through the motions of what we'd do in certain situations. It's boring, but it's one of those things you have to do.

After a while Samir's patience snapped. Mancini kept stopping us to move Nasri around. 'No, you here, you here,' he'd say, and then we'd start again. Then a whistle. 'Samir, you here, you here.' Again and again until Nasri had enough. 'I know what I'm f****** doing,' he shouted at Mancini, and then he walked off.

That's a taboo, walking out of a training session, but Nasri wasn't the sort to care. He was not to be messed with. He kept going until he'd disappeared inside. Mancini replaced Nasri with James Milner and started the session again.

When we were finished training, they picked up where they'd left off. They were screaming at each other, swearing in French, neither one budging. It was absolute carnage.

Eventually, Nasri offered him out. 'Talk to me like that again and I'll kick the s*** out of you,' he said. To his manager. I don't think it was an empty threat. Samir wasn't one to back down. It was the only time that I ever saw Mancini walk away.

That weekend, we went to Old Trafford and won 6–1. Milner was brilliant, maybe the best I ever saw him play. But he wasn't meant to be in the team. Nasri was. Instead he ended up as a sub, punishment for threatening to spark his manager.

VINNY THE DICTATOR AND HIS FINES BOOK

Vincent Kompany's locker was immaculate. Everything was in the right place: the textbooks for the Master's degree he was doing in Business Studies in one spot, his notes and his coursework in another. All we wanted though was one specific folder: the one that contained the fine sheet.

Nobody had a problem with the fact it was his job to track the fines. It was more that he seemed to enjoy it a little bit too much. He might have been a teacher. A stern headmaster. He was so organised. 

Every time a player was late or didn't put his bib in the washing basket after training, he'd log it on his little fine sheet, alongside how much every player owed and how many times they'd committed each offence. Then he would store it, very carefully, in his locker.

Kompany took his job seriously. As captain, he saw himself as the adult in the room. It was up to him to maintain standards, to keep everyone in line. It was also up to him to enforce the rules.

Occasionally, though, there would be a bit of a popular uprising. That was what took me and a few others to Vincent's immaculate locker, every now and again, with a pair of bolt cutters.

Like all dictators, he was obsessed with security. He was one of only two people who used to padlock his locker; the other was Nedum Onuoha, who also had coursework stored in there. 

We'd make sure nobody was watching, snap

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