VETERAN DAVID TAKING CHANGES IN HIS STRIDE
NEW DELHI: As David James enters the room, the term ‘midlife-crisis’ comes to mind. Elliott Jaques, a Canadian psychologist, first coined the term in 1965 saying around the mid 40’s and 50’s, men and women begin to question their own mortality and begin to look for change.
While the Kerala Blaster’s player-manager may be 44, and going through change, he is far from a crisis. He is going through the motions.
The former England international is third highest in EPL appearances with 536 caps for the likes of Liverpool and Manchester City.
Until the 2012-13 season, he was still playing in England, but on Sunday he will be leading a Kerala team out against bottom-placed Delhi Dynamos in the Indian Super League. Change for the good then?
“It was a wonderful experience (playing in the EPL), 18 years there. I played the first live match in 1992,” James, who holds the record for most clean sheets in the EPL says.
IRRESISTIBLE
A call from a friend and a chance to get some experience in coaching was too hard to turn down. “I went through my coaching badges and a friend of mine offered me the assistant-manager’s job in Iceland and I could play at the same time,” James says of his move to Icelandic side IBV last season.
Videos of David will show him screaming to organise his defence, but the change of now being in control of each player seems to come easy.
“You should be able to reenact what you have done on the training field on the pitch,” he says. “As manager the only difference is that you have to monitor that the team is doing what they have been told.”