There can't be many footballers who have ever had as good a season as Julian Alvarez when it comes to trophies won.
A big-money move to one of Europe's top clubs in the summer, a famous World Cup triumph in which he played an integral part at Christmas time and then three medals in the bag by the next time the sun came out. A sensational campaign that the vast majority of footballers could only ever dream of but it still feels like just the beginning for Alvarez.
Though Erling Haaland overshadowed him with a ludicrous number of goals, Alvarez still enjoyed a very respectable debut campaign for Manchester City on a personal level. New signings, especially forwards, have tended to need at least a year to fully grasp what Pep Guardiola wants from them. Jack Grealish, Bernardo Silva, Riyad Mahrez and even Rodri didn't begin to flourish until their second seasons.
But Haaland and Alvarez have both flown in the face of that trend. It gets better still when you recall that Alvarez came into the City squad off the back of playing a full season for River Plate.
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There was hardly any time for rest or recuperation before Alvarez was training with his new club and getting straight into the action. The 23-year-old finished the campaign with 17 goals and five assists. But the stat he will want to increase more than any other in the forthcoming season is his minutes played.
Despite making 49 appearances, Alvarez only played 2,542 minutes which averages out at 51.5 minutes per game. Last year, he was not a regular starter and that's understandable given Haaland is undroppable at the head of the attack. Instead, Alvarez tended to play in a supporting role. Either as a second striker, an attacking midfielder or very occasionally out wide.
Alvarez has done everything asked of him brilliantly and more opportunities in the middle could be on the horizon following Ilkay Gundogan's departure but his name probably still isn't in the strongest starting XI just yet. He will get loads of minutes and play a crucial role again but there may also be times when he is sat on the bench twiddling his thumbs.
That can grow frustrating for players, no doubt, as Gabriel Jesus revealed this week. In an interview with The Denilson Show, the former Blues striker explained the moment he ran out of patience after years of waiting in the wings and decided he wanted to leave.
"There was a Champions League game, PSG, at home, in which he put [Oleksandr] Zinchenko as a false 9. Crazy thing," Jesus said. "The day before, he didn't even use [Zinchenko] in training, he had put me in as a striker. Zinchenko even joked with me: 'that day I felt bad for you.'
"Two hours before the game, there's a team talk, the team eats, rests for 30 minutes and goes to the game. He told us the team, I didn't even eat. I went straight to the room, crying, I called my mother to talk: 'I want to leave.' I'm going home, because he put [Zinchenko] on, and he didn't put me on. He put a left-back there. I went crazy."
Jesus' reaction is understandable given he was hailed as Sergio Aguero's successor, happily played second fiddle to him for years and then hardly got a chance to lead the line after he went but you're never going to succeed at City if being on the bench gets you down to that degree. Guardiola appreciates players can be frustrated with him when they don't play but they must never upset the harmony of the group.
Alvarez is already realising his potential but could get even better next season. He will just need to stay patient to do so.
