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Ben Davies showing Spurs the benefits of his Danish education
Ben Davies has been in sparkling form this season Credit: Reuters
Jonathan Liew, at the John Smith’s Stadium
1 October 2017 • 10:30pm
About 15 years ago, Alun Davies took a job in Denmark with a company that produces central heating pumps. And so Alun and his wife Eryl packed their bags and moved to a town called Viborg, taking their football-mad eight-year-old Ben with them.
Ben joined the local academy, and soon found himself getting a rare and valuable footballing education. During the harsh Danish winters, indoor football was the game of choice, with pristine artificial surfaces and an emphasis on control, passing and movement.
“It was a lot more technical and organised at that age,” Davies would later remember. “At that level I also found that the quality was better. It’s something they should do more here.”
Football’s origin stories can often become overly fixated on small details. Davies returned to Wales at the age of 11. But it is tempting to wonder whether he would have become the player he did if he had instead spent those years charging up and down the muddy pitches of his rugby-focused Swansea primary school.
In an important sense, that technical education, that ball craft, that thirst for learning, developing, exploring the outer reaches of his game, has never quite left him.
Ben Davies scores Tottenham's second goal on Saturday
Davies scored Tottenham's second goal on Saturday Credit: PA
To watch Davies against Huddersfield Town on Saturday was to be reminded of that. While most of the plaudits were reserved for Harry Kane and his two goals, Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino went out of his way to praise Davies, whose outstanding performance at left wing-back was another leap forward for one of English football’s most improved players. His goal and assist were his third of each in his last nine matches.
“For me, he is one of the best full-backs in the Premier League,” Pochettino said. “The performance was fantastic. OK, Harry Kane, but Ben was also one of the best on the pitch in defending and attacking. His energy is fantastic.”
Davies has been at Tottenham for three years now, and until the start of this season would have been nobody’s idea of a footballing icon. His interviews are measured to the point of tedium. Danny Rose has long been recognised as the first choice in his position. Spurs fans do not even have a song for him. But all the while, Davies was building, maturing, sharpening to a point.
They always used to talk about his capacity for learning at Swansea, combining a youth team career with studying for his A-Levels. On the Tottenham bus, he can often be seen with his nose buried in a book. That unwavering commitment to self-improvement has been one of the constants in his career.
Yet to make a player better, you need the right environment as well as the right individual. And in Pochettino, Davies has found the perfect sensei: a coach who recognises that while players perform on a Saturday, they develop during the rest of the week.
“He’s worked so hard to get to this moment,” Pochettino said. “He’s always been professional, and that is why the club are so proud of him.”
Under Pochettino’s relentless fitness regime, Davies has shed fat and added muscle. Tactically, he has adapted his game to the demands of the wing-back role, becoming more clinical in the final third, finishing chances as well as creating them.
Now, with Rose poised to return from injury in the next few weeks, and the fallout from his recent comments on the club’s pay structure still simmering, it is no longer clear who Tottenham’s first-choice left-back is.
Over the last three seasons, Tottenham’s win percentage with Rose in the team has been 44 per cent. With Davies - and the caveat that he has featured less in big games - it is 66 per cent. It is a delightful headache for Pochettino to have.
But in a way, the real moral of this story has a wider relevance, in a game ever more shrilly geared towards the instant judgement, the overnight success, the “statement” signing. The idea that you can simply improve a player rather than signing a new one feels almost quaint these days.
And yet from the heated halls of Denmark to the space-age training pitches of Enfield, Davies is living proof that if you are willing to learn, life has no limits.
Ben Davies has been in sparkling form this season Credit: Reuters
Jonathan Liew, at the John Smith’s Stadium
1 October 2017 • 10:30pm
About 15 years ago, Alun Davies took a job in Denmark with a company that produces central heating pumps. And so Alun and his wife Eryl packed their bags and moved to a town called Viborg, taking their football-mad eight-year-old Ben with them.
Ben joined the local academy, and soon found himself getting a rare and valuable footballing education. During the harsh Danish winters, indoor football was the game of choice, with pristine artificial surfaces and an emphasis on control, passing and movement.
“It was a lot more technical and organised at that age,” Davies would later remember. “At that level I also found that the quality was better. It’s something they should do more here.”
Football’s origin stories can often become overly fixated on small details. Davies returned to Wales at the age of 11. But it is tempting to wonder whether he would have become the player he did if he had instead spent those years charging up and down the muddy pitches of his rugby-focused Swansea primary school.
In an important sense, that technical education, that ball craft, that thirst for learning, developing, exploring the outer reaches of his game, has never quite left him.
Ben Davies scores Tottenham's second goal on Saturday
Davies scored Tottenham's second goal on Saturday Credit: PA
To watch Davies against Huddersfield Town on Saturday was to be reminded of that. While most of the plaudits were reserved for Harry Kane and his two goals, Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino went out of his way to praise Davies, whose outstanding performance at left wing-back was another leap forward for one of English football’s most improved players. His goal and assist were his third of each in his last nine matches.
“For me, he is one of the best full-backs in the Premier League,” Pochettino said. “The performance was fantastic. OK, Harry Kane, but Ben was also one of the best on the pitch in defending and attacking. His energy is fantastic.”
Davies has been at Tottenham for three years now, and until the start of this season would have been nobody’s idea of a footballing icon. His interviews are measured to the point of tedium. Danny Rose has long been recognised as the first choice in his position. Spurs fans do not even have a song for him. But all the while, Davies was building, maturing, sharpening to a point.
They always used to talk about his capacity for learning at Swansea, combining a youth team career with studying for his A-Levels. On the Tottenham bus, he can often be seen with his nose buried in a book. That unwavering commitment to self-improvement has been one of the constants in his career.
Yet to make a player better, you need the right environment as well as the right individual. And in Pochettino, Davies has found the perfect sensei: a coach who recognises that while players perform on a Saturday, they develop during the rest of the week.
“He’s worked so hard to get to this moment,” Pochettino said. “He’s always been professional, and that is why the club are so proud of him.”
Under Pochettino’s relentless fitness regime, Davies has shed fat and added muscle. Tactically, he has adapted his game to the demands of the wing-back role, becoming more clinical in the final third, finishing chances as well as creating them.
Now, with Rose poised to return from injury in the next few weeks, and the fallout from his recent comments on the club’s pay structure still simmering, it is no longer clear who Tottenham’s first-choice left-back is.
Over the last three seasons, Tottenham’s win percentage with Rose in the team has been 44 per cent. With Davies - and the caveat that he has featured less in big games - it is 66 per cent. It is a delightful headache for Pochettino to have.
But in a way, the real moral of this story has a wider relevance, in a game ever more shrilly geared towards the instant judgement, the overnight success, the “statement” signing. The idea that you can simply improve a player rather than signing a new one feels almost quaint these days.
And yet from the heated halls of Denmark to the space-age training pitches of Enfield, Davies is living proof that if you are willing to learn, life has no limits.
