REISS LIGHTNING
RAPIDLY-RISING ARSENAL STAR NELSON IS LOVING LOAN LIFE IN HOFFENHEIM ... BUT IS AIMING MUCH HIGHER
AS Reiss Nelson made the drive from Heidelberg, cutting through the sparse village of Hoffenheim and pulling into his loan club’s Zuzenhausen training complex, he had a sense of foreboding.
‘You’re surrounded by all these trees,’ says the 19- year- old Arsenal forward. ‘I was thinking, “Where am I going to?” It seems very small but it opens up into a beautiful modern place and you’re kind of surprised.
‘Then I got into the changing room, all the guys are speaking German and I’m thinking, “What are they talking about?”’
In previous times, a young English player, so out of his comfort zone, may have scrambled for the fastest escape route. Hoffenheim is far removed from the fast and furious life of south London.
Nelson grew up in the maligned Aylesbury Estate, made famous when Prime Minister Tony Blair turned up there in 1997. Blair’s visit to the estate was the lightning rod for him to declare that the ‘poorest people in our country have been forgotten’. For Nelson, it was simply home.
‘It is a bit gritty,’ Nelson says. ‘On my estate, there are dangerous things happening. But I had my ball with me, that made me feel safe. Street football...that’s where I developed my strength, mentality and ruthlessness.
‘I have an elder brother who said, “Go out and play”. My family made big sacrifices. My sister took me to training when she was pregnant. My brother-in-law skipped work to get me to training. We’d get the train, a bus and sometimes even walk to training. I’m just so happy it’s working out.’
Nelson is close friends with Borussia Dortmund’s Jadon Sancho, a product of their shared Kennington upbringing and subsequent German adventures. They represented Southwark together as Under 11s in the London Youth Games.
Nelson signed a new long-term contract at Arsenal last summer and, in search of first-team football, he plumped for a season in Germany. The initial results were explosive. Nelson scored on debut and struck six goals in his first seven Bundesliga games.
His progress since has been hampered by injury but the club’s director Alexander Rosen calls Nelson ‘really incredible’.
‘The intensity has made me better,’ Nelson says. ‘On my debut, the ball went over the top and everyone shouting, “Weiter, weiter, weiter”... I didn’t know what they were talking about! It meant run, run, press, press. That’s the intensity you want.’
Along with Sancho at Dortmund, Nelson’s contribution has focused German clubs’ gaze on Premier League academies.
At Arsenal, Nelson has long been touted as another diamond mined from south London.
He trained with their first team aged 15 but the first overtures, at the age of eight, came from rivals Spurs. A battle ensued. Nelson says: ‘ My brother-in-law was a Tottenham fan. He introduced me to football and brought me to Tottenham. I was there on trial for two weeks. I had a game, played well and that night a lot of teams called me.
‘At 12 o’clock Arsenal called and I went in the morning to the training ground.
‘Arsenal was my dream club, I’d have been kicking myself if I turned that down.
‘I had Thierry Henry’s name on the back of my shirts — then he was the coach of our Under 19 squad. His main thing was staying grounded.
‘A lot of kids, when they get to 18 or 19, they start getting flashy and forgetting about the real basics of being a professional footballer. He always said, “Be on that and you’ll go to the top”.’
Henry’s confidence in Nelson is shared by the England set-up. Earlier this season, Gareth Southgate’s assistant Steve Holland visited Nelson in Hoffenheim. The interest clearly meant a lot to the young winger.
‘He (Holland) said I’ve just got to keep performing and hopefully I can get there,’ Nelson says. ‘Every kid dreams to play for their country. I want to get to the very top. My family deserve everything they will get. For them to see me in an Arsenal shirt and a Hoffenheim shirt, scoring my first goal here, they were in tears.
‘It can only get better. I just need to stay loyal to God and anything can happen.’