Spurs veteran Davies talks Ange-ball, retirement, Premier League

There is a pretty clear perception and stereotype associated with professional footballers (but hey, that probably applies to any team sport which generally expects you to sacrifice school for practice before the age of 16 and where your career income reaches eight figures at the time you are 25). Many are thought to inhabit a continuum that stretches from boring nights doing pedestrian boring things at home in front of a 128-inch screen, to wild nights involving fast cars and overpriced toys, like riding in private jets or wearing limited clothing encrusted with bling. Editing starts.

The cliché is that most are either unintelligent, uneducated, or both. If they are considered smart, it's usually in a slightly roundabout way, “street smart” or “dealer on wheels.” If they are simply uneducated, it is generally assumed that they are happy to remain ignorant of anything going on beyond their work/family/toy bubble.

Having spent more than two decades around professional footballers, there is probably some truth to this cliché, as there is to most stereotypes. But there are also many more exceptions than you might think. In fact, Julien Laurens and I recently met one of them for an episode of “Gab and Juls Meets…”.

Tottenham Hotspur defender Ben Davies turns 31 this spring and, although he has no plans to stop anytime soon, he has been preparing for this day for a long time. It's not just that he's working towards his coaching license, it's also the fact that he found time to earn a university degree in business economics at the age of 26, while playing full-time for Spurs and Wales, and having access to all the toys and distractions that come with it.

“I was a bit of a nerd,” he says. He is currently studying for a Masters in Sports Business through the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA).

“I’m one of those guys who likes to plan for every eventuality,” he says. Originally, it may have been a fear of what might happen if he never made it in the professional game. Today, it’s driven by curiosity and the desire to improve and educate oneself.

“I thought a good use of my time in the afternoon would be to delve into a few books, mostly math and economics,” he says. He is determined to get his coaching license so he can hit the ground running when he retires, rather than staying “out of football, trying to find his way back.

In January, when Tottenham traveled to training camp in warm weather, Davies stayed behind to recover from injury. What else did he do? He went to watch a Tottenham under-13 boys match. “It's a joy to realize that you can talk to kids and they hang on your every word and you can actually give them advice that might help them,” he says, his eyes shining.

We often talk about 'coaching trees' and influences, and it's obvious he's spent a lot of time thinking about and learning from the many high-end coaches he's worked with at Spurs – from Antonio Conte to Jose Mourinho to Mauricio Pochettino – – and in our interview we talk about each one, their differences in methods and personalities, their quirks and preferences. (More on this in Episode 2 of our chat, which goes live next week.)

Unsurprisingly, he did the same for his current boss, Ange Postecoglou, and is quick to point out an often unnoticed element (other than his Australian accent) that sets him apart. Most Premier League managers have a team of trusted assistants following them from club to club: a number two, a goalkeeping coach, a fitness attendant, whatever.

Not Postecoglou. When he got up, he did it alone. He had never worked with Ryan Mason, Matt Wells (who had both played at Spurs previously), Chris Davies (who came from Leicester City) or Mile Jedinak (who had played at Aston Villa), although he had coached Jedinak years ago with the Australian national team.

“It’s very different from what I’ve experienced before,” says Davies. “All the coaches I've had [in the past] It was a close-knit team, with a message that they had perhaps built over three or four years, or even more, and the manager trusted them to deliver that message. Ange's approach here is therefore very unusual. »

“Perhaps not having the same staff following you everywhere prevents that level of complacency from creeping in,” he adds. “If you've worked for someone for 10 or 15 years it can be difficult to tell them when you disagree and maybe if you work with new people you're more able to say certain things. It's interesting, but if I became a coach, I don't know if I would have the confidence to go into a situation like this alone. It's impressive!”

'Angel-ball' has been the talk of the Premier League this season, for better and (sometimes) for worse. It's certainly different and Davies does a better job than most of summarizing central concepts (a skill that will serve him well if he goes into coaching).

“First of all, sometimes it's easy to forget that it's only been six months and he's implemented a whole new philosophy,” he says. “We want to have the ball as often as possible, but we don't want to keep it just to keep it, we do it to create opportunities. We do it through freedom, the only players who have really succeeded in positions are the goalkeeper and central defenders, for obvious reasons, and the two wingers, who stay high and wide to corner the opposing full-backs. Everyone has the freedom to move as they wish.”

“Of course there are games where you don't know how far you should move forward as a full-back or how much risk you should take,” he adds. “But then we would look at it [in the video session] and we would see all the good that could come from, say, a full-back taking a stand [as a number 10] or maybe [James Maddison] drop into a left-back position. It's encouraged all the time and it works when everyone is brave and has the courage to just play. »

Davies is very happy to offer a practical example of how this works, taken from Tottenham's match against Manchester City, no less.

“[Full-backs] Rock [Porro] and destiny [Udogie] play mainly as number ten, even center forward and are marked by [City wingers Jeremy] Doku and [Phil][ Foden,” he says “And because [City central defender] Rúben Dias follows the attacker [Heung Min Son]so we have a 2 against 2,” he explains. “That’s the kind of situation we want to create.”

play

Davies: Leicester's winning season was Spurs' 'big opportunity'

Ben Davies reflects on Tottenham's failure to beat Premier League winners Leicester in the 2015/16 season.

Davies may have many interests outside of football, but his love for the game clearly runs deep and deep-rooted.

Years ago, Italian attacking midfielder Massimo Mauro wrote a captivating book, “I Played with Three Geniuses” about his years alongside Zico at Udinese, Michel Platini at Juventus and Diego Armando Maradona at Napoli . It's hard not to think back when Davies speaks admiringly of his decade spent working with Harry Kane and Son at Spurs and Gareth Bale in Wales. He speaks convincingly about the thread that unites them and the qualities that separate them, and about the experience of being a “good” footballer alongside greatness and to what extent, in each, it is nature versus nature. 'education.

For a guy who has spent over 10 years at the same club, Davies is both inward and outward looking. Self-serving in the sense that he doesn't take his career for granted and has clearly studied how he got to this level.

“I knew I was good, but I never felt like I was elite,” he says. “Football is a big chance. In my case, when I got close to the first team, it was more about being capable and not looking overboard than being so good that the coach must have picked me. In fact, some of the best players I played with at under-15 or under-16 level are completely out of the game today… there are many and I think Let it go unnoticed.”

He is open to the outside world because he knows that the game is not limited to the league in which he plays. “I think we are all in this Premier League bubble,” he explains. “It's the best and most viewed league in the world and so we forget how much talent there is. I always had his perception that – whatever level you end up at – it's a real privilege to be able to play this championship game. Sometimes in the Premier League what gets lost becomes everything to everyone.

Part of this worldview may have been shaped by the fact that, from the ages of eight to eleven, he lived in Denmark, where his father was stationed to work. Just experiencing another form of football, joining Viborg from the Swansea Academy, is mind-opening: “The big difference is that when winter comes, in Denmark they all move indoors, on handball courts, and work on their techniques,” he says. “In Wales they stay outside and it rains all the time, the pitches get waterlogged and games get cancelled.”

In our interview he also reflects on how quickly the Premier League is changing and evolving. He is only 30, but when he made his top-flight debut, Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger had not yet retired and, of the 20 Premier League managers, at the start of this season , only Mauricio Pochettino (then at Southampton, now at Chelsea) and David Moyes (then at Everton, now at West Ham) are still there. His first professional contract cost £400 (around $500 at the time) a week and, as Swansea did not have its own training complex at the time, before and after each training session players had to change in the locker room at a public gym, with the manager relegated to a laundry room under the stairs.

“Except when Christmas time came,” Davies recalls. “So the director [Brendan Rodgers no less, who would go on to coach Liverpool, Celtic and Leicester City] was getting kicked out of the gym because the gym owners had turned it into a space where local kids could go meet Santa.

Stories like this remind you how far – and how quickly – this league has come. Davies also knows how far he has come and how far he wants to go. And for a few hours, he methodically guides us through the past, present and future that he hopes to write for himself.