Maddison’s arrival on big stage shows he is a cut above
Playmaker who took on Jeremy Clarkson ready to let football do talking with England, writes Jim White
When he was watching the match between Chelsea and Leicester City in August, Jeremy Clarkson, the erstwhile host of Top Gear who has a season ticket at Stamford Bridge, felt obliged to issue a tweet about one of the visiting players.“
James Maddison: too long at the barber’s, not enough time practicing [sic] football,” he opined to his followers.
After the game, in which he supplied the assist for Wilfred Ndidi’s equaliser, the Leicester playmaker posted the following retort to Clarkson: “Stick to cars, mate. Can count on one hand how many trims you’ve got left.”
It was a put-down as sharp and accurate as one of his through-balls. However, sitting in the hotel at St George’s Park after a training session with the England squad, Maddison is quick to dismiss the idea that it was motivated by anger at the jibe. “I wasn’t angry, it was just a light-hearted joke. I used to watch Jeremy Clarkson on TV and he made a comment about my hair.” And he ruffles his short-at-the-sides, full-ontop Peaky Blinders-tribute style. “I think my hair is all right.”
Not for the first time, with his
insinuation that Maddison is the sort who prefers to spend his time getting an expensive trim rather than working on his game, Clarkson drove at entirely the wrong target. The truth is, whatever the coiffure, Maddison is a football obsessive, a player committed to doing whatever it takes to realise the potential within him. Every day he puts in hours of solitary practice at Leicester long after the formal sessions have ended.
“The manager still has to come and get me off the training ground as I’m out there till 1pm when training finishes at half-11,” he says. “If anyone wants to question whether I was concentrating on football enough, I’ll just leave that out there.”
This is a player, moreover, who reveals his favourite way to pass the time after he has finally finished training is to head to a cafe with team-mate Ben Chilwell and while away the afternoon over a coffee, invariably talking about one thing: football.
“My life is football. I live and breathe football. I love the game, I love watching it, I love playing it, I love talking about it. If anything, I sometimes need to take a step away from football.”
Football nerd he might be, but this is not someone who lacks confidence. There is nothing shy or retiring about James Maddison, on the pitch or in person. In the recent shoot-out to decide Leicester’s Carabao Cup tie with Newcastle, he chipped a Panenka penalty over prostrate goalkeeper Karl Darlow. Though he insists that was not done to foster on-field drama.
“I’m a creative footballer. My job is to score and assist goals,” he says. “I scored a Panenka because I had a feeling the keeper was going to dive one way, so it was a case of smash it down the middle or chip it. The important thing was to score. I don’t go into the game to try to entertain; I go into it to try and win.”
It is a philosophy that has gained him attention since he first arrived on the Coventry City bench as a 16-yearold. Almost from the off, he was at the centre of rumours about big-club interest.
“I once came in from a training session and someone had texted me that they’d seen in the Coventry Telegraph that Maddison was going to Tottenham,” he recalls. “I texted my