Jack Rodwell knows what it feels like to carry the weight of expectation as a young footballer, writes Tom Smithies.
Jack Rodwell is sitting on a balcony with a view back towards Sydney’s CBD, but for a moment his eyes seemed fixed on the middle distance.
In the middle of a discussion about the wave of young talent in the A-League – its potential but also its pitfalls – it strikes the one-time coming star in English football that these days he’s a senior pro who’s been a professional footballer for half his life.
WATCH: A-LEAGUES ALL ACCESS, EPISODE 25: BAD BLOOD
As someone who has absorbed the wins and the wounding that football can bestow, he’s in a good place to offer the lessons of personal experience as hype laps around the feet of players like Nestory Irankunda and Jordan Bos.
Those 16 years of experience will be invaluable for Sydney FC in their Semi Final against Melbourne City on Friday night but he well remembers the unique pressure on a boyhood Evertonian when he reached the first team, and the level of expectation from fans and media.
Rodwell was just 16 when he made his debut in a Europa League tie, the same age as Wayne Rooney had been on his first-team Everton debut five years previously. Manager David Moyes talked him up and suddenly Rodwell was training every day with the likes of Tim Cahill and Louis Saha.
English fans beyond Everton liked the look of this young, ball-playing defender-cum-defensive midfielder, as did England’s daunting head coach Fabio Capello. For Rodwell the hype just kept growing, through an England debut at 20.
At the same time it was made clear that Sir Alex Ferguson was keen to take him to Manchester United, until Manchester City boss Roberto Mancini came in with an offer of more than $20m that Everton accepted. At 21 Rodwell moved an hour east from Liverpool to Manchester but to a different world of superstars like Yaya Toure – against whom Mancini made clear Rodwell was competing for a place in midfield.
Then Mancini left, Manuel Pellegrini arrived with a preference for experience in midfield, and Rodwell began to suffer the first blights of a litany of injuries that eventually, via 167 Premier League appearances, turned promise into the past tense. But years later, on a sunny day in Sydney, he can recite the headlines and the plaudits for a young player still to turn fully into a man.
How you deal with all of that can reveal a lot about your character because nothing, he says, can prepare a teenager for being at the centre of such a storm.
“It is weird, you know, I look back at it and think, wow, it seems like it was just a moment ago – I made my debut (for Everton) at 16.
“The short answer is you don’t really (prepare for the pressure), you have to deal with it on the job really. You’re never going to get used to something like that.
BUY TICKETS TO SYDNEY FC v MELBOURNE CITY, LEG ONE
“At Everton as well, at that time there was quite a lot of pressure because they’d been notorious for bringing players through with Wayne Rooney doing what he did and all the other young players that have come through. It was like, if Everton bring a young player through, well, he has to be amazing.
“It had that bit of a reputation at that time. So it was obviously daunting but there’s no way you can actually learn prior. You’re thrust into it and that’s it.
“Obviously you then have to look to your family (for guidance). I lived at home anyway till I was about 20 still with my mum and dad and my brother and that.
“So I still had my local mates, I was kind of doing the same thing really. I didn’t really change much.”
The key for those coming through on the Australian scene, he says, is not to look to the horizon, or hear the promises of fame and fortune, but appreciate the time and space the A-League offers to climb the first few rungs of the professional ladder.
“One hundred per cent the main thing is, it’s just one game at a time,” he says. “Don’t look too far ahead, don’t think, I need to play in Europe, I need to do this.
“Here you’re kind of in a little bit of a bubble and you can get away with a few different things here and there. The young lads here, they can… not relax exactly but take it a little bit easier.
“Just actually enjoy every moment and the end goal will always come if you’re enjoying it and working your hardest really. Then what will be will be. That’s what I would say, don’t look too far ahead.
BUY TICKETS TO SYDNEY FC v MELBOURNE CITY, LEG ONE
“(Football) is a little bit in the shadow of probably a couple of other sports here, whereas in England, it’s like it is the sport and you are in the limelight like 100%, even when you’re off the pitch, not even just on it.”
That limelight wasn’t always kind to Rodwell over the intervening years, notably when fans became frustrated at his injury relapses, but the player himself sounds the most frustrated of all – not least the ailments that have limited him to 11 appearances for Sydney this season.
“It’s never really been a question of ability,” he says. “It’s just always like, can I stay fit and to be fair the first half of this season has probably been one of my most frustrating really because every time I felt like I was fit and then I’d break down.
“Sometimes you think, oh jeez, I’ve got to go through all that rehab again and it’s just so annoying. Finally, you know, I feel like I’m over that hurdle and it’s just nice to be on the pitch and playing regularly and not having that in the back of my head.”
BUY TICKETS TO SYDNEY FC v MELBOURNE CITY, LEG ONE
The timing could be perfect with City coming on Friday; with their senior core of Rodwell, Alex Wilkinson, Luke Brattan and Adam Le Fondre finally all fit, Sydney suddenly look an unlikely force in the finals.
Their defeat of Western Sydney was surprisingly comfortable last weekend, the tone set by Rodwell’s early tackle on dangerman Brandon Borrello.
“Well it’s a derby game so any chance you can put a foot in, for me especially as the center back, I’ll always take that chance,” he says with a smile.
“There were a couple of them tackles that had to be made here and there but to be fair, it flipped at half time, we started taking control of the game a bit more.
LE FONDRE: Match winner’s admission that drove Derby revenge mission
“We all felt like in the second half that we were on top and, you know, they couldn’t get out. So now we are the form team really.
“I don’t know why we’ve gelled at the back end of the season… but it’s probably the perfect time to gel and click.”
