I was wrong – today’s players are braver than I was
Stars like Sterling, Sancho and Rashford are using their status to do good in the world
WHEN England were humiliated by Iceland at Euro 2016, I offered my theory as to why my country was failing to match the standards of rivals in Spain, Germany, and France. My criticism labelled our academy graduates “the pampered generation”.
I expressed concern about young players being unprepared for life’s psychological, physical and practical challenges, playing on “immaculate pitches, in pristine training gear, and having every area of their life run by their agents”.
I’ve thought long and hard about those observations recently. Now I am not afraid to admit it: I was wrong.
When I look back upon those words, I realise I fell into the trap of many retired footballers. Every generation believes those who follow have it easier.
The players of my era faced the same criticism. Many of those who shone in the decades before the Premier League cursed the malign influence of big wages and commercial endorsements on those lucky enough to excel during the 1990s and 2000s.
Lament
How often did you hear an ex-player lament ‘the game’s gone soft, you do not even see a tackle today’ or ‘that player would not have lasted five minutes in our day’ while talking nostalgically about the hard knocks of the 1970s? In football, toughness has often been wrongly defined as referencing physical attributes.
Go further back, and I’m sure you’ll hear the post-war heroes from the late 1940s and 1950s saying how lucky those playing in the top division in the 1960s and 1970s were because they could train at the club’s own facility every day, and didn’t need to get a bus with fans to the game or have a job outside football to support their families.
My fear upon my retirement as a player – especially having spent so much time watching academy football – was there was a growing disconnection between youngsters, some who become multi-millionaires by their early 20s, and the fans they represent.
I no longer believe that. England’s current group of elite players are stronger, more independent and willing to take greater risks with their career than those before. This generation is not pampered. It is enlightened and pioneering.
Strength of character manifests itself in various forms. My mistake after the Iceland debacle was in arguing it is measured in a footballer solely by his or her actions on a football field – whether they possessed what I defined as ‘streetwise’ skill and knowledge to consistently excel at the highest level.
What I had not appreciated or noticed was how young footballers’ savviness was rapidly evolving in a fresh, exciting way. Observe the courage of youngsters such as Jadon Sancho, who at the age of 17 was confident enough to leave England and sign for Borussia Dortmund, backing his ability to make every top Premier League club want to sign him three years later.
As someone who never left the city of Liverpool, and would have found having to move from Merseyside to a club 60 miles away such a wrench, I chose to retire in my mid 30s rather than seek another contract elsewhere, I cannot contemplate the idea of an overseas transfer as a teenager.
When I established myself in the Liverpool team at the turn of the Millennium, I was always willing and ready to speak honestly about the game and performance, but I could not imagine diving into interviews about global politics.
Today’s players use their voice to push for social change, which means putting themselves on a pedestal where they know they will be targeted, or told they should ‘stick to football’.
Raheem Sterling ensured more players feel comfortable being assertive on sensitive subjects such as race, so whenever an incendiary incident arises, more elite sportsmen and women want to be at the forefront of calls for reform.
When we think of the women’s game, the USA’s Megan Rapinoe was prepared to take on her country’s president on matters of gender inequality and civil rights. I am certain her example was a wake-up call inspiring male players to be more proactive on such issues. That is why we have seen so many clubs join the protests in the wake of recent events in America, and so many images of footballers ‘taking the knee’ to honour
George Floyd.
Closer to home, the unity of Premier League captains brought together by Liverpool’s Jordan Henderson to set up a fund for NHS staff was an example of players intuitively recognising their community responsibility.
There have been countless examples of this during the Covid-19 crisis, some more high profile than others.
Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford’s charity work during the lockdown is extraordinary, raising £20 million in donations via his partnership with FareShare, set up to fight food poverty and waste.
Earlier this week, Everton’s Seamus Coleman was the latest captain to endorse wage deferrals of up to 50 per cent, and one of the positive side-effects of the lockdown has been in demonstrating how many of our clubs’ foundations assist local authorities, assisting the most vulnerable.
Generally, more players are involved in these projects thanks to the clubs’ expanding philanthropy. This makes a mockery of the idea young players have lost touch. The opposite is true.
When social media first became popular, there was a wariness of how and when it should be used, players in danger of getting into trouble to such an extent clubs introduced education programmes emphasising the pitfalls.
Now those platforms give stars the chance to use their voice and deliver messages in a considered and powerful way.
Allied to the important fact so many of the young English players taking centre-stage have consistently delivered on the pitch – generally immune from criticism for their sporting prowess as they amass Premier League and European honours – they feel empowered, relishing their status as role models in a way we have never witnessed on this scale before.
The world feels smaller in 2020 because it is so easy to connect digitally and, as a consequence, emotionally.
Twenty years ago, a horrendous incident on the streets of Minneapolis did not resonate so swiftly in Liverpool or Manchester to the point my teammates and I would feel an obligation to deliver a supportive statement.
Speaking personally, I cannot sit here and write that I would have had the knowledge or boldness to do so.
Four years ago, I jumped on a bandwagon promoting the idea I was part of the last generation of footballers who had a rapport with the fans he played for.
It was nonsense.
The class of 2020 have shown themselves to be braver and more in tune with the world around them than I was. (© Daily Telegraph, London)