10/4/2023 0 Comments Calibre academy websiteEven then, they were startled by her dribbling ability and success rate in one-v-ones, not to mention the breadth of finishes from a player who had mastered both feet and was lethal with either. Those coaches were right to savour those hours with her, and the moments in the company of a player who was so obviously set to go all the way. James joined around two years later, training with the under-10s but unable to play in their competitive matches because she was so young. Thus began, with multiple Chelsea coaches, conversations with Nigel about when to take Lauren into Chelsea’s centre of excellence. They’d been going for 90 minutes - Reece in the session, LJ on the sidelines - but they loved it.” But we were just as big a kids as the kids were. “The family would be telling them 10 times: ‘We’ve got to go.’ It’s eight, nine o’clock at night. Parsons recalls how he and other coaches would stay to play with the James siblings after training ended. These two are going to be real fun players to see when they’re older.” “After training finished, she would come on the pitch again. She would play before we started training: energy, had the ball at her feet, running around, dribbling past everyone, non-stop.” His voice drips with joy. But then also there was this little girl - she must have been five or six - who was the spitting image of him. “Every Monday night, Nigel and the family would be there with Reece. Nigel was a fan of that as well - that need to develop the whole game. I remember academy coaches, when he reached the under-9s, saying we need to play him in different positions. He was a striker, if you can position anyone that young. Parsons recalls Reece as “this kid full of energy and love and passion” who could “do it all. Among his coaches was the current Washington Spirit head coach Mark Parsons, who was back then working at Chelsea’s under-8s development centres. ![]() Reece joined Chelsea at six, scouted at a tournament at the club’s Cobham training ground one summer. Nigel’s coaching business filled the James’ garden with cones and balls - maybe as many as 50, Nigel told BBC Sport in 2021, for Reece to practise endlessly crossing the ball for either of his siblings to finish. England international Conor Gallagher and England youth international Jacob Maddox were among Reece and Lauren’s team-mates. It started conventionally enough - after-school clubs, holiday clubs - and as his reach grew he was able to cherry-pick the best local players to join his children Joshua, Reece and Lauren, all born two years apart, in tournaments. The Wimbledon-based Nigel James Elite Coaching does what it says on the tin Nigel, who enjoyed a brief non-league career for Woking and Aldershot, got the coaching bug when a moped accident sidelined him in his early twenties. Nigel has been asked for it often enough, from parents eager that their offspring succeed his as football’s most famous siblings. This game springs to mind when one thinks of James’ father Nigel - because who else, on these shores, has raised footballers as wildly successful as Lauren and her brother Reece, another Chelsea and England international? How many others have part of the blueprint for a future Ballon d’Or Feminin winner? Who has not, at some point, cooked up in their mind their perfect test-tube footballer? Maybe, as I have, you’ve dreamed up a shadowy figure in an incubator, distilling into syringes the best attributes of the world’s elite: the physical prowess of Cristiano Ronaldo, with the goalscoring prowess of Ada Hegerberg. Those watching James’ languorous drift - those moments when she floats as easily as one might exhale, coasting like the spores of a dandelion clock - will see now why James is the most talked-about footballer the English women’s game has ever had.Ĭelebrating goals is already a habit for James at this World Cup (Photo: Zac Goodwin/PA Images via Getty Images) Her second, against China, yielded two goals and three assists and a place in the record books - no England player, man or woman, had ever been involved in five goals in a major tournament match before. ![]() That first World Cup start yielded James’ first World Cup goal, winning England’s second group game against Denmark. ![]() Lauren James destroying everyone in 2022!įor weeks, the calls rang out: Lauren James has to start. On they run, scores of aptly-titled clips of the player who can flow like a comet, whose boots feel speckled with stardust. Even before her major tournament debut, one could gorge on a veritable box set of Lauren James gold, poring over YouTube videos like one used to in the New Releases aisle of Blockbuster.
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