Those who know him say he is not a captain in the Vincent Kompany mould, someone who would roll up their sleeves and head to the trenches.
Walker, 34, is a people person, a joker, a wind-up merchant. Not too intense, a 1990s-style player still cutting it in the 2020s. He looks out for his team-mates and makes the dressing room atmosphere a positive one. When youngsters perform their media duties, he wants to know how they have done.
In delivering his pre-final message in Turkey, Walker was effectively saying ‘winning this competition has been my dream, I have looked after you guys, now you owe me a favour in return’.
It is the reality for most right-backs that their abilities tend to get overlooked.
Gary Neville was an outstanding player in his own right. But what carried him to eight league titles and 85 England caps was the unselfish way he overlapped first David Beckham, then Cristiano Ronaldo, over and over, without getting the ball.
Walker is not Trent Alexander-Arnold. He cannot spray pinpoint passes around the pitch. Ultimately, he is not the player Guardiola felt could be the inverted full-back the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich coach wanted.
What Walker had was blinding pace and an insatiable competitive streak.
These attributes were presumably overlooked when a Tottenham official, reflecting on the player’s £50m move north in 2017, said his club felt they had struck a good deal because Walker was not an ‘absolute top player’ and they still had Kieran Trippier.
Six league titles and 93 England caps suggests Tottenham got their assessment wrong.
