Slovakia vs England: Jamie Vardy ready to write a sequel to the fairy-tale after summer of decisions and deliberation
Vardy acknowledges that he bucked a trend when declining the overtures of one of the Premier League’s established powers when he spurned Arsenal this summer
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Your support makes all the difference.He has an autobiography out next month and a Hollywood biopic in the offing but not everything about the Jamie Vardy story is to the liking of the man who went from non-league to champion of the Premier League in the space of four years.
That much was evident when the Leicester City and England forward, sitting in a room at St George’s Park this week, contemplated a query about the lessons learned from his late-arriving fame. One came instantly to mind. “Yeah, I can’t leave my house,” he said.
“Put it this way, I don’t get to have that many family days. I can’t even go to the shops without getting harassed. Obviously it’s fans wanting photos and stuff but me, personally, if I’ve got my little girl with me then I don’t really want to have to put her down to have a photo taken.
“It is mad,” he added. “I’m still the same person. I’ve not changed. I understand fans do want to get a photo or autograph but sometimes there’s a time and place.”
He may live a life transformed but one thing, crucially, is unchanged for the 29-year-old author of one of 21st century football’s great Cinderella stories. His blue Bentley has not turned into a pumpkin since last May’s title triumph and nor, moreover, did his blue shirt become a red-and-white Arsenal one this summer.
Vardy acknowledges that he bucked a trend when declining the overtures of one of the Premier League’s established powers. “You can see that point but deep down if you don’t think it is right move for you, you don’t do it. It is as simple as that.”
He did plenty of thinking before the confirmation came, in the middle of England’s disappointing Euro 2016 campaign, that he had signed a new deal with Leicester. “I was in a hotel room for many hours of every day with nothing to do,” he recalled. “You had a lot of time on your hands – you get that much time, literally, to think about every single thing down to the tea lady. You think about what might happen, what might not, where you could be, where not. Every time I thought about every little thing, both head and heart were saying, ‘You need to stay’.
“Leicester have been on the rise and will keep doing that,” he added. “They obviously want to keep it going. If it does keep going, I want to be part of that. I’ve been there from when I [signed from] Fleetwood when we were in the Championship, and we’ve gone up and up and up.
“There is always a pinnacle to go on top of the pinnacle. Once you get there you want to achieve more. Last year was massive for the club and it weren’t supposed to happen. We enjoyed it very much and it’s not supposed to happen again so we’re just out there enjoying ourselves.”
One detail he adds about the dilemma over his future is he kept bumping into Arsène Wenger while out in France. “It was basically every hotel,” he remembered. “I think he was doing French TV for the Euros. It weren’t awkward, it was just a simple ‘Hello, are you okay?’ – that kind of thing. It was a nice compliment they wanted to buy me. But my head and heart were saying stay.”
If Wenger wanted him, the question is to what extent Sam Allardyce, England’s new manager, feels the same way. “When I first arrived he told me a little story of when I was at Fleetwood, and the Fleetwood manager [Mickey Mellon] was trying to get him to sign me at West Ham.” Allardyce did not sign Vardy then and he will not be starting him in England’s opening World Cup qualifier against Slovakia on Sunday.
It was against Slovakia, in a grim, goalless draw in Saint-Etienne, that Vardy made his only start of the Euros. He ended up missing their best opportunity of an evening of frustration when foiled by Matus Kozacik after racing clear on goal.
“They didn’t really come out that much,” he recalled, “[but] this is a new competition where they’ll be looking to qualify so they will have to come out a bit more which should give us a bit more room to play our football and dominate them.”
“Heartbreaking” is how he sums up that campaign but there was a honeymoon ease around the England camp this week – underlined by the sight of Vardy offering reporters a drink as he poured himself a glass of water before our interview.
Allardyce’s stated wish is to bring some lightness to the England set-up – “The good thing is he wants to make it as much as if we were just at normal clubs,” said Vardy – and the involvement of Craig Shakespeare, Leicester’s assistant manager, in the set-up should help. “The sessions are always good,” he noted, before moving on to the third Leicester face in the camp – midfielder Danny Drinkwater, excluded by Roy Hodgson for the Euros but reinstated by Allardyce.
It was Drinkwater’s ball over the Swansea back line that Vardy sprinted on to for his first goal of 2016/17 last weekend and that understanding could potentially serve England well.
“We know each other’s game inside out and he doesn’t even have to put it in the perfect position,” Vardy explained. “He knows there is definitely a good chance that I’ll get on the end of it. I just make the run hoping he’s seen me enough in training to put the ball there. It might be a case of his pass making my run look good. It worked perfectly for us at Leicester so why not for England?”
Of course, England are unlikely to ever build their attack around Vardy as Leicester have done, yet Vardy’s response is he will play anywhere. “Listen, whatever formation, if I get the opportunity to play, I will give it 110 per cent in whatever position I’m playing in, that’s just how I am,.
“It’s up to me – if it’s not suiting me, then it’s up to me to adapt, which then comes back to putting the hard work in on the training pitch to make sure that you can.”
Make no mistake. He may have his Premier League winner’s medal and his book and film, but Vardy, 30 in January, insists there is still more to come. The “little jab in the face” he gave himself after missing a clear chance against Hull City on the opening day was not the sign of a player letting up.
“You can’t stop doing what you have done, you have got to keep going,” he said. “You never want it to end, you never want it to stop so the only way to keep that going is to constantly put the work in. That is the only way you are going to get benefits from it.
“I’m hoping I get to play a lot longer. I’m hoping the legs have not had as much hammer as if I’d been playing since 18. I hope they keep me in good stead. I hope I don’t lose my pace too much and we’ll see what happens”. In short, the sequel starts here.
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