Tag: DANIEL Sturridge

Daniel Sturridge was taking part in a fashion shoot for Esquire magazine and the Liverpool striker admits he is tempted to take up acting

“I loved drama class at school. I never took it seriously as I was playing football. But maybe when I retire, I’ll have a dabble,” says Sturridge

Eric Cantona and Vinnie Jones cracked it, but will Daniel Sturridge? The Liverpool striker has admitted he fancies dabbling in the movie business once his football career comes to an end.

The England forward has been enjoying the company of supermodels and designers at London Fashion Week, while also recently appearing in his first professional shoot for Esquire magazine.

The former Manchester City and Chelsea forward’s poses are a start but Sturridge recognises he has a long way to go if he is to fit into Hollywood.

“There is an expectation that if you do a sport, any sport, you should never have a life outside of that, “he said. “People expect you to just train, play, and train. But that’s not me.”

Within seconds of arriving, the striker rubs his hands together. “Right, where’s the clothes then?” he asks, in his mild Birmingham accent. Soon he’s admiring the bomber jackets (“I like them all, to be fair”), chatting amiably and, despite his tired legs, posing patiently wherever he’s needed. We really needn’t have worried.

It’s not the first time the 25-year-old has surprised people. When he arrived at Liverpool FC in 2013 from Chelsea, many doubted he was the right man to partner Luis Suarez. Fast-forward a year and Suarez and Sturridge (“SAS” as the media dubbed them) bagged 52 Premier League goals between them, leaving Liverpool just three points off their first title since 1990.

Then the World Cup happened. “Obviously, it was disappointing,” Sturridge says of Roy Hodgson’s ill-fated campaign in Brazil. “But I lived one of my dreams: I scored a goal at a World Cup. I feel that I gave a good account of myself.”

In fact, Sturridge was one of the few England players to finish that tournament with his reputation enhanced. It capped a year in which, finally trusted to play in his favoured striker role, Sturridge emerged as the first choice for club and country, and one of the most coveted players in his position in the world. All of which marks a remarkable turnaround in his fortunes.

Off the pitch, he’s also been full of surprises. Vice magazine hailed him as “the only hipster in football”. It’s true: whether hanging out with über-cool musicians like Banks or at fashion shows, Sturridge moves comfortably in circles where most in his profession would look hopelessly out of position. Not many players, after all, would cite Joe Casely-Hayford and Rick Owens as favourite designers, nor have the wit to reveal his own monochrome colour blocking is “inspired by [US wrestler] The Undertaker.”

“I think the stereotype about footballers being badly dressed is unfair,” he says, before generously appraising his teammates’ style credentials. “Hendo [Jordan Henderson] dresses quite well. [Mamadou] Sakho is very dressy; he’ll show up to training in a smart shirt and shoes, though I think that’s a Parisian thing. Brad Jones has a go, loves a blazer, Brad Jones…”

Sturridge is open-minded about the role of a modern footballer, citing American NFL and NBA superstars, many of whom don’t see the worlds of art and culture as mutually exclusive from their own. “There is an expectation that if you do sport, any sport, you should never have a life outside that. People expect you to just train, play, and train. But that’s not me,” he says.

Aside from fashion  Sturridge says he might like to design trainers someday  he is currently building a music studio in his apartment (“just to kill time in, I’ll probably never release anything”). He’s also learning Spanish and Portuguese to better communicate with his fellow players and, most surprisingly of all, claims if he wasn’t a footballer he’d be an actor.

“I loved drama class at school,” he says with a wide smile. “I never took it seriously as I was playing football. But maybe when I retire, I’ll have a dabble.”

Then he’s out the door, having proved as adept at modelling as he is at scoring goals.

*Adapted from Daily Mail & Esquire

DANIEL Sturridge’s relationship with the World Cup extends beyond sharing a stage with the trophy here in London on Thursday. His father Michael was signed by Sir Alf Ramsey as a schoolboy at Birmingham City, and it was at much the same age that his son’s journey began.

It was 2006 and Uncle Carl, the youngest of his father’s five brothers, had an idea to travel to Switzerland to watch Brazil prepare for that summer’s tournament in Germany. The plan was to go there for a couple of days.

But a 15-year-old Daniel was so enthralled by the opportunity to join thousands of Brazilians in watching the open training sessions that he phoned home and begged his parents to let him stay longer. In the end he stayed a fortnight and managed to secure a photograph with Ronaldo and Cafu. ‘I just loved watching Ronaldo play and train,’ he says. ‘I loved to study his movement and technique. If I met him now I would still be in awe of him.’

He likens his partnership with Luis Suarez at Liverpool to some from years ago. He talks of ‘Shearer and Sutton’ as well as ‘Yorke and Cole’ and ‘Bergkamp and Henry’. He says: ‘I love watching the footage they run of old Premier League seasons. I can sit and watch for hours. Yorke and Cole were innovators in the way they played together. That season in ’99. Brilliant.’

He recognises the fact that partnerships of the kind he now enjoys with his Uruguayan colleague are something of a rarity with the development of more modern formations. ‘When it was all about 4-4-2 it was more common,’ he says. ‘But they can still thrive today, and I’d like to think I can develop a partnership with Wayne Rooney in the England side in the way I have with my mate Luis.’

He comes across as a perfectionist. ‘If I miss a pass in a match I will ask the coaches to recreate the moment in the next training session so I can avoid making the mistake again,’ he says. ‘Hard work is the key to all of this, and that is something I’ve learnt from Luis but also from my family.

‘I love my job. But I’ve always thought that you have to be dedicated. My dad’s brought me up to be dedicated. My parents I should say. They made a lot of sacrifices, moving to Manchester with me when I was 13 and showing a lot of belief. So I had to repay them.

‘I’ve had to make sacrifices. At 15, 16 I didn’t used to go out. I used to make sure I was at home, watching Spanish league football at weekends, Match of the Day. That was my weekend, that was what was fun to me. But I also didn’t want to let my parents down and waste maybe five years of their lives.’

He does sound like the perfect professional. Something of a dream for a manager like Brendan Rodgers. He is a devout Christian, has no interest in alcohol ‘I just don’t like it’ and no desire to party too often. ‘I like producing music,’ he says.

‘And the theatre. I like going to the theatre. I was decent at school and if I hadn’t been a footballer I would have been an actor.’ The new Vinnie Jones perhaps? ‘No,’ he says laughing. ‘Not Vinnie.’

The silver screen can wait. Now he’s at Liverpool, in one of the most exciting sides in the Barclays Premier League, the football is his only focus, the 32 goals he has scored in 40 appearances for his club underlining his ability.

It is the kind of ability that must make Manchester City and Chelsea wince, given that they both lost him. In the past, some have suggested his failure to settle at those clubs was partly down to him. A lack of patience, or a degree of arrogance. Maybe even a bit of surliness. This, however, is not the young man sitting before me here. He could not be more charming, humble and respectful.

He could not be more modest about the medals he has won a Premier League, a Champions League and two FA Cup winners’ medals sit with the medals he won in the Aston Villa Under 9 side.

But why has it taken this long, until Liverpool, to firmly establish himself. ‘With City it wasn’t a case of the club doing anything wrong,’ he says. ‘They had a lot of money at the time and were buying a lot of strikers and for a young player of 18, it would have been a bit silly for me to stay with the strikers they bought. They had Felipe Caicedo, Jo, Craig Bellamy, they signed about six or seven strikers.

‘I just didn’t feel like I would get an opportunity there, because I knew it would only get worse, because they had more money. So I thought the best place to go, with the things Chelsea said to me, was London.