VARDY ENGLAND’SSECRETWEAPON

Jamie Vardy’s rise from non-league to Premier League champion is well known – but the 29-year-old isn’t done yet. Here’s why he is key to England’s chances

ver the past 20 years, England’s two most exciting players at major tournaments have been quick, direct centre-forwards unleashed immediately after their first major Premier League campaign. Michael Owen starred at the 1998 World Cup, Wayne Rooney at Euro 2004, both fearlessly charging through the opposition’s defence. This time around, it could be the turn of Jamie Vardy.

Vardy, of course, is in a different situation. Owen and Rooney were both 18 at their first major tournament; Vardy will be more than a decade older. Nevertheless, picking the Leicester City man upfront would be a similar move: selecting an in-form, direct striker who most opponents won’t have faced before.

His rise through the English football pyramid has been one of the most incredible stories the game has seen in decades. While Rooney was preparing for the second World Cup of his career in 2010, the Manchester United forward’s new Three Lions team-mate was joining sixth-tier FC Halifax Town from Stocksbridge Park Steels.

Now, it’s Vardy who is a Premier League champion, so it makes sense that success at international football should be the next target on his hit list. Roy Hodgson’s primary concern will be over Vardy’s ability to transfer his club style onto the international scene. With Leicester this season, Vardy has depended upon being able to counter-attack into space, positioning himself in the channels outside opposition centre-backs. His movement is intelligent: he often drifts towards the flank on the opposite side to the ball, which then allows midfielders to play diagonal passes in behind the defence so he can sprint onto them. Danny Drinkwater, in particular, has struck up a good relationship with Vardy in this sense.

This approach largely relies upon opponents playing high up the pitch, however, and Vardy’s goalscoring rate slowed after Christmas when teams realised Leicester were a genuinely good side and that they needed to sit much deeper. Vardy was immediately less effective.

Nevertheless, his sheer pace and good first touch ensures he’ll always be a goalscoring threat, and his forward runs could be perfect for Hodgson’s system. The England manager has generally moved between a 4-3-1-2 and a 4-3-3 system since the 2014 World Cup, and he will be confident that Vardy could slot into either system. In the former formation he would be a natural strike partner for Harry Kane or Wayne Rooney, who tend to move into deeper positions, and in the latter he would be entirely comfortable playing out wide. Vardy’s chances of a starting place have improved dramatically after Danny Welbeck’s knee injury – Hodgson had earmarked the Arsenal man as his first-choice versatile, pacy forward.

Even if Vardy is used primarily as a supersub, he can still be effective, a fact underlined by his exquisite back-heeled equaliser against Germany in March, having replaced Welbeck.

In keeping with his incredible rise, however, it feels somehow inevitable that Vardy will force his way into the side this summer and prove to be England’s key attacker in France.