CROATIA v ENGLAND
BORUSSIA DORTMUND wonderkid Jadon Sancho was the most eye-catching selection in Gareth Southgate’s latest England squad.
Following Sancho’s elevation to the England senior ranks for the upcoming games against Croatia and Spain, ADRIAN KAJUMBA spoke to four men who have helped him along the way.
THE BOY
SAYCE HOLMES-LEWIS coached Sancho and childhood pals Reiss Nelson (on loan at Hoffenheim from Arsenal), and Ian Carlo Poveda (Manchester City) in his role as community sports head coach for Southwark’s London Youth Games team.
The Under-11s won the competition at the prestigious event in 2011 with a team that included Sancho and Nelson.
Holmes-Lewis said: “With Jadon there was a lack of belief when he was younger. There were times we had to take him off in games and reemphasise how good he was and instil belief in him, but as he got older he started to realise how good he was. They were both phenomenal. At times, because of their friendship, it was telepathic between them on the pitch.
“They had so much flair but wanted to work hard and had that aggressive nature because, growing up in that area of Southwark, you had to have something about you to be able to play.
“Watching Jadon I am not surprised he is doing things nobody else is doing. He’s embarrassing defenders. If he continues on his trajectory he will be European player of the year or world player of the year. I am super-proud of what he is doing.”
TEENAGE KICKS
SANCHO was at Watford until he was 14, turning down the chance to join Chelsea and Arsenal along the way because he preferred the Hornets set-up that allowed him to train more regularly and go to school.
Louis Lancaster (below) was Under-15s coach at Watford and continued to help Sancho even after leaving the club in 2015 to work in China and then as assistant manager of the
Chinese Taipei national team.
He said: “If you watch Barcelona, they have players who can pass the ball but really you want Lionel Messi on the ball and running around players like he did against Tottenham. Jadon has similar qualities. He’s an entertainer and exciting. That’s his character off the pitch as well.
“He was a very determined, driven, competitive character who loved to be challenged. I remember sitting down with him once when I was interviewing all the players and I said to him, ‘What’s the dream?’ and he said, ‘I want to play in Europe for one of the top clubs and play for England to make my family proud’. The best players have to take personal responsibility and that is where Jadon sets himself above the rest.
“Once he was meant to be doing an English lesson at Harefield Academy where he did his schooling while training with Watford. You would walk past his screen and he would close a page as he was watching clips of Neymar doing skills – but I knew what he was doing! Then he’d click the page back up and watch Ronaldinho.
“Anyone could recognise he was a special player. He has so much ability. He played up an age group and did so to have more of a challenge.
“We played Arsenal Under-15s and this is when I knew he was very, very special. We were 1-0 down, then equalised, then in the 75th minute Jadon gets the ball on the halfway line, goes round two players, cuts inside and lobs the keeper. It was a big game, a big moment, against one of the best sides in the country and he just produced a moment of brilliance at a crunch time. I thought, ‘If you can do it now, with this pressure, you can do it whenever you want’.
“His dad Sean was a huge influence and very supportive, always asking questions, and he has been brilliant with him.”
MOVING UP
IGNORING the appeals of Chelsea and Arsenal, when Sancho left Watford he did so for the challenge of Manchester City.
Mark Burton, youth phase coordinator at City while Sancho was at the club and now a one-toone performance coach for a number of professional players, said: “When you shine at City as Jadon did, you know a player is different. He had flair, creativity and imagination and a bit of street football.
“Hopefully, we added some variety to his game and got him to use his teammates better. He wanted to be pushing, doing more. When he was with the 16s he wanted to be with the 18s, when he was with the
18s he wanted to be with the first team. If you had given him first-team football at 15 he wouldn’t have been fazed.
“Winning wasn’t enough.
It was about his performances. If he scored one he wanted three. If he created one he wanted to create three. If it was too easy you didn’t get the best of him. In some ways his worst games would be when it was too easy.
“He was an inspiration to the young players at the academy. We would go to watch the Under-18s games when he was there and you could see the younger players looked up to him and their eyes would light up like, ‘That’s Jadon Sancho’.
“At City we probably asked him to do things in his game, and on and off the pitch, that he didn’t want to do but he did it because he knew it would help him get to where he wanted to go.
“He wasn’t a big fan of the gym sessions but he still did them. He connected those dots. He was the one who was driven. All credit goes to him.
“Once we played Man United’s U-18s and for whatever reason he didn’t start. He wasn’t too happy and we were losing 2-1. Then he came on and scored one and set one up and we won 3-2. “The move from City was a big thing
because he got first-team football.”
THE PRO
AFTER turning down a £30,000-a-week offer at City due to concerns about his future first-team prospects, Sancho decided to leave, and moving abroad was his first choice.
He turned down Real Madrid and Bayern Munich and in a choice between Borussia Dortmund and Monaco he picked the German side in August 2017 and has not looked back.
Dortmund had been aware of Sancho since they watched him at 14, playing for England in a youth tournament.
The club’s sporting director Michael Zorc (above) said: “He chose us because for more than a decade our strategy has been to transfer the best European talents, to trust them, give them a lot of time on the pitch and make them better.
“His development has been fantastic. Jadon is one of the most exciting players in Europe. Normally, boys of this age still lack effectiveness, but Jadon is very effective. He makes goals on a regular basis, and most important, has something unpredictable.
“You never know if he will go left or right. He enriches our game and reminds me of
Ousmane Dembele on the pitch.”