National team gave Florent tough decision

call-ups in the future. He said: “I was very happy that I had my second call. Ok, I didn’t play in any games, but I was in the squad, it was good to train with the lads.

“You have to try your best in games, play games to show the manager of the national team that you’re available, playing well and playing regularly. You have to do your best and try everything.

“I always want to be in the national team and the most important thing to help me do that is by playing good games for Huddersfield Town.”

As Hadergjonaj spoke of his journey from Switzerland, to Germany, to his current home of sunny West Yorkshire, it is perhaps surprising that he became a professional footballer at all. He hails from Langnau, an ice-hockey mad city just a few miles east of the capital city, Bern.

Hadergjonaj says he may well be the only footballer to ever come out of Langnau, and was spurred on to be different by family and friends, who also preferred studs to skates. “I think because my family they are crazy for football, all my family members, even my mother, all the time she has to watch football,” he said.

“I had a lot of friends who also wanted to play football, and not choose the other direction of ice hockey. I am very bad at this (hockey), I tried a lot of times but it’s not my favourite sport. It’s good for me that I decided to play football!”

I grew up in Switzerland and was a player there. It was not an easy decision