As James Maddison digests the shattering news, as he comes to terms with how Gareth Southgate has cut him from the England squad for Euro 2024, it was difficult not to recall the buildup to the previous major tournament when everything was different.
Before the 2022 winter World Cup in Qatar, the Tottenham midfielder had been the player everybody wanted Southgate to pick, a cause célèbre. Then at Leicester, Maddison was in the form of his life, his 22 Premier League goal involvements in the calendar year had been bettered by only Harry Kane, Kevin De Bruyne and Son Heung-min.
Would Southgate give him the call? He had afforded him one cap previously – as a substitute in the European Championship qualifying win over Montenegro in November 2019. Maddison had not so much been out in the cold as in the deep freeze. When Southgate did include him, it was a shock.
It is not the case this time. Maddison made the £40m move from Leicester to Spurs last summer and a part of the idea was that it would help him to cement his England place. It certainly started well. Was there a better player in the league than Maddison in those first 10 games of the season? He was the heartbeat of the Spurs team that bolted out of the blocks under the new manager, Ange Postecoglou, storming to the top of the table with eight wins and two draws.
Maddison brought the numbers – three goals and five assists. As much as that, though, was the sense that here was a player at the peak of his confidence and powers of expression, who was having fun. Which is saying something given Maddison’s self-belief. The showman midfielder had found his ideal home. The platform was in place for him.
How have we got to the point where his exclusion from the England squad is not a surprise? On one side of things is the sky-high level of competition for places in the line of three behind the striker in Southgate’s 4-2-3-1 formation. If Bukayo Saka, Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden and surely Cole Palmer are nailed-on selections, then Jarrod Bowen, Anthony Gordon and Eberechi Eze have put together strong cases. Then there is Jack Grealish.
Everything changed for Maddison – and Spurs – during the 4-1 home loss to Chelsea in early November when he was forced off with an ankle injury, which would rule him out for almost three months. Since his return, the 27-year-old has just not hit the same high notes. Most of his metrics have been down and not only the top line that shows one goal and four assists from 17 league games. He was dropped for the visits to Chelsea and Liverpool at the start of May. His England rivals have simply performed better.
The strange thing about Maddison is that the talent and, yes, the hype have not been matched by his output in an England shirt. Frustratingly, the knee injury he picked up playing for Leicester against West Ham just before the World Cup would affect his training and mean he did not feature in Qatar.
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He has won seven caps, four as a starter. He got on to set up Bellingham for a last-gasp equaliser against Belgium in March and there were a few flickers from him as a substitute in the 3-0 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina on Monday. It has not added up to a body of work.
Those heady days from the World Cup countdown continue to resonate: Maddison’s emotional retelling of the good news phone call with Southgate; the photograph he uploaded to social media of himself as a kid in an England shirt, his face painted with a St George’s cross; how he was the player chosen for England’s welcome press conference in Qatar.
His selection for that media engagement spoke volumes for his personality, his star quality, how he likes to be the main man – even at a family roast dinner, as he would put it. “Every one at the minute is almost like a pinch-me moment,” Maddison said at the time. He talked about how “dreams really do some true”. Sadly, so do nightmares.