Why James Maddison is the new David Beckham

IN latitude terms, James Maddison’s path to the top has been as flat as it gets. From Coventry to Norwich to Leicester is about 25 miles north to south but a lot wider, and width in all its senses has been key to Maddison’s career. The concept of the ‘new Maradona’ has haunted football for three decades but the list of players hyped as the ‘new Beckham’ is much shorter, largely because the former England captain’s skillset was so unique. Hours of practice in the days when the Class of 92 just meant a class, in 1992, turned Beckham into a delivery machine, throughout games but particularly at set-pieces.

David Bentley came and went but James Maddison, set to make his England debut this week, is surely the man to inherit Beckham’s mantle, should that approach be required. And for all the focus in modern football on technical ability and innovation in open play, sometimes some precision when the ball sits still and eager on the turf is just what’s needed.

Think back to England’s World Cup semi-final against Croatia last year. The early goal from Kieran Trippier from a direct free-kick that unleashed such hope. An excellent finish and something that Maddison has made a speciality. Last season the Leicester man became the first player to score three direct free-kick goals in a single campaign since Phillipe Coutinho in 2016-17. The record in a Premier League season? David Beckham (and Laurent Robert, of course) with five. Within Maddison’s grasp at some point? You’d have to think so. That Trippier goal was instructive, though, because in the semi-final, and in the tournament overall, England were heavily reliant on set plays. In chronological order, the team’s goals were derived from: a corner, a corner, a corner, a penalty, open play, an indirect free-kick, a penalty, open play, a penalty, a corner, open play and Trippier’s direct free-kick.

Gareth Southgate has attempted to evolve England’s play since the World Cup but if you’ve got the most promising ball deliverer in Europe to call on, you’d be a brave man or a crazed aesthete not to put him in the side. Wait, you say, has Maddison really done enough to earn that moniker? The blessed numbers would suggest so. Not only did he create 100 chances last season, the first non-Big Six player to do it in the Premier League since Dimitri Payet in 2015-16, but almost half of them came from set-pieces. If you include the early weeks of this season too, Maddison has reached the half century, which is six more than Manchester United and eight more than Arsenal in the same period.

James Maddison created 100 goalscoring chances, the first non-Big Six player to reach treble figures since Dimitri Payet in 2015-16

— Duncan Alexander (@oilysailor) May 12, 2019

So that’s the overwhelming case for Maddison in set-piece terms, but the arrival of Brendan Rodgers at Leicester has seen other areas of his game develop. 12 completed dribbles this season is surpassed by only four other players in the Premier League, and the likes of Nicolas Pepe and Wilfried Zaha do not offer the dead ball expertise of Maddison. Plus neither are available to play for England, despite everyone’s favourite international quirk meaning that Zaha has played two more games for the Three Lions than Maddison as it stands. Meanwhile, only three players made more tackles for Leicester last season than the man they signed from Norwich.

Look, you and I both know that midfielders like Maddison were supposed to have gone extinct, do-it-all dinosaurs smashed to bits by a tactical meteorite and replaced by blank-faced defensive screens and tiny technicians busying themselves like ants in the final third. But while the primary goal of football is to, well, score goals, then players like James Maddison will be worth their weight in asteroids. He was unlucky not to get into the England side last season, but the time has come. You don’t have to be Madd to work here, but he helps.