IHEANACHO MAY BE RED-HOT BUT DAD IS ICE COLD THE CUP RUN HAS BEEN BRILLIANT, BUT I WON’T LIE, THERE’VE BEEN SOME DARK, DARK DAYS... HORRENDOUS
Keeper Forster has been to hell & back with Saints – but now has his eyes on the prize of a Wembley final
IF LEICESTER can make the FA Cup final, the cameras won’t have any problem picking out Kelechi Iheanacho’s proud dad.
While the on-fire Leicester striker is all about taking chances, dad James won’t be taking any.
He’ll be the one sitting in the warm spring sunshine with hat, scarf, coat and gloves at the ready.
James Iheanacho accompanied his then teenage son for a trial at Manchester City back in 2014 and was so cold he’s never been back.
And while the Nigerian international (above) is the hottest thing around right now, he says his old man is the original Daddy Cool.
The Foxes hotshot prefers not to think beyond tomorrow’s semifinal with Southampton, but admits persuading his father to make the trip to a potential final date might be a problem.
Iheanacho said: “Hopefully we’ll get him back one day. He’s even cold in Nigeria. Nigeria is hot but he is cold! My dad is funny.”
The 24-year-old forward admits he also found adapting to the English weather a problem, adding: “I remember my first training with the coaches in Manchester. It was February and it was so cold.
“It was the first time my dad had been out in cold weather. He wanted to watch me train but after 10 minutes I couldn’t see him – he had gone inside.
“I was outside for 45 minutes and told the trainer, ‘I can’t do no more’. It was freezing. He let me off and I went inside. I couldn’t cope at that point but I am used to it now, I can train with my tops off.”
“I am not being funny but my dad has not been back. But maybe I can convince him. I don’t know.”
Everything is falling into place for Iheanacho, who has scored 15 goals this season. He’s netted 11 in his last 11 games, including a double to sink Manchester United in the quarter-finals (right). He boasts the best goals-perminute ratio this season with one every 92 minutes, putting him above the likes of Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Mo Salah, Heung-Min Son and even Harry Kane.
He adds: “I think it clicked at some point. As a player sometimes you face trying times at your club and once you get your opportunity you take it, and that’s what I’m doing now. It will keep coming.”
A devout Christian, Iheanacho is philosophical about a journey which saw him stuck behind the likes of Sergio Aguero at City and Foxes legend Jamie Vardy at the King Power.
He praises Vardy for his help, saying: “It’s my route. Everyone has their route in football and this one is mine.”
But his head won’t be turned by the trappings of success as he recalls fondly his days growing up with no other distraction than kicking a ball around for fun.
“I loved that part of my life. I wish I could bring it back. I loved playing football with my friends and my brother.
“We hadn’t got all this technology, or phones, we just came out and played. I feel if it could come around now people would be happy.”
FRASER FORSTER will complete a remarkable journey from the “dark days” of being a forgotten man to potential Wembley hero.
Before completing a remarkable comeback, the 33-year-old Southampton keeper had made just ONE Premier League appearance in more than three years, after being frozen out at St Mary’s. Forster fell out of favour under Mauricio Pellegrino, did not play under Mark Hughes, was loaned out to Celtic for a year, and fell so far down the pecking order at Saints that sometimes he did not even make the bench.
But Forster refused to give up and has used the FA Cup as a route back to being Saints’ first-choice keeper under Ralph Hasenhuttl.
Former England keeper Forster (lifting the Scottish Cup with Celtic in 2019, right) said: “I’ve had to wait and the FA Cup has been brilliant for that.
“But I’m not going to lie, there have been some horrendously hard days along the way, and luckily I’ve come through the other side of that.
“For me, not playing was incredibly hard because you’re coming into training, but have got no game at the weekend to aim for.
“I had just signed a new five-year deal here but, six months later, you’re out of the team and then, a year later, you’re not even making squads. So it was very tough. It was hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel at times.
“Managers pick the team, and if you’re not their cup of tea or they don’t rate you, as a keeper it’s hard to get
back in. There have been some very, very dark days, that’s for certain.”
It is hard to imagine that Forster, who joined Southampton from Celtic for £10million in 2014, could drop down so far given he had won six England caps and was nicknamed ‘The Great Wall’ in Glasgow, after famously defying Lionel Messi’s brilliant Barcelona side in the Champions League in 2012.
But Forster was dropped after a 5-2 defeat at Tottenham in December
2017, played just once on the penultimate day of the following season in a 3-0 defeat at West Ham, then found himself stranded at the start of this campaign with little hope.
He said: “You’ve just got to adopt the mindset that you can only do what you can do. It was a tough decision in the summer. We had a fantastic year last year at Celtic, I had another year back there which I absolutely loved, but I made the decision I wanted to come back here.
“The manager (Hasenhuttl) has been absolutely brilliant with me. He knows what he wants from his keepers, what he demands, and that’s clear across the pitch. “Everyone has got real clarity on what he wants from each position. I came back, worked at that, and had to obviously bide my time.
“The FA Cup was perfect for me to get a few games and that run has really helped me get my place in the team.”
Forster worked hard on his kicking and distribution and, since stepping in when Alex McCarthy missed the Liverpool game in January through Covid-19, he has never looked back.
He now has a chance to be a hero in tomorrow’s FA semi-final against Leicester. “This is a great opportunity, we’re coming up against a fantastic team with a fantastic manager,” added Forster. “But it’s one game, anything can happen, and it would be fantastic if we could progress into the final.
“Both Leicester and us will be thinking, ‘Let’s go and get into a final and see what happens’. It should be a fantastic day and a great game as well.”