The 18-year-old made his England debut in October and says he wants to act as a role model to young players in the English game <\/p>\n
Jadon Sancho has admitted his favourite player is\u00a0Neymar despite the Brazilian’s reputation for diving and gamesmanship.<\/p>\n
The 18-year-old winger\u00a0has enjoyed a remarkable start to the season with\u00a0Borussia Dortmund, scoring six times and bagging five assists in just 14 Bundesliga appearances.<\/p>\n
Sancho moved to Germany from Manchester City\u00a0in 2017 in search of first team opportunities and the move has paid off as he has endeared himself to the Dortmund fans with his pace and dribbling ability.<\/p>\n
Article continues below<\/span> <\/p>\n Juve on alert: Exiled Icardi may have already played his final game for Inter Sarri vindicated for dropping Kepa as Chelsea & Pedro impress in Spurs win Magnificent Mane takes centre stage as league leaders Liverpool put on a five-star show Lukaku sends reminder that his Man Utd career is far from over <\/p>\n That flair on the pitch is reminiscent of a number of Brazilian forwards and Sancho has opened up about his idols:\u00a0\u201cGrowing up, my \u00adfavourite player was Ronaldinho,” he told the Mirror<\/em>. “That speaks for itself, really. He was such a great player and always played with a smile.<\/p>\n \u201cNow it\u2019s Neymar, because he\u2019s just different. He takes the mickey out of people. Obviously it\u2019s not good but he\u2019s just being himself, he\u2019s expressing himself and I love that. People are maybe not scared about doing what he does, but they just wouldn\u2019t do the things he\u2019s doing.<\/p>\n \u201cI just think when you are different you stand out more and I like when \u00adpeople stand out because it\u2019s something different, an individuality on the pitch that you just don\u2019t see every day.\u201d<\/p>\n Sancho made his England debut against Croatia in October and started last month’s friendly against the USA, suggesting the teenager’s move abroad has paid off.<\/p>\n He claims more young players should follow in his footsteps by moving away from England and says he wants to set an example\u00a0for youngsters coming through academies\u00a0in his homeland.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think I can be a role model to people growing up,”\u00a0Sancho continued. “OK, I\u2019m only 18 but age is just a number. If you\u2019re good enough, why not? In England especially, footballers don\u2019t leave the country until they are at least 22.<\/p>\n \u201cI would say to anyone, \u2018Don\u2019t be afraid to follow me and make a move like this.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cYou are here for one reason and that\u2019s to make it as a footballer. So when they come along you have to take your chances, otherwise you can\u2019t succeed. You can\u2019t be your best if you don\u2019t take chances.”<\/p>\n Dortmund have become famous for blooding\u00a0young talent with managers Jurgen Klopp and Thomas Tuchel building their reputations for developing youth in recent years.<\/p>\n Despite that, Sancho’s transfer was still seen as a risk by many\u00a0and it surprised some of his peers to see him move to a non-English speaking country.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople ask me why Dortmund \u2014 a place where I don\u2019t speak the language. But they play a lot of young players and they have faith in a lot of young players, and that\u2019s really good when you are \u00adtrying to develop as a player. That\u2019s one of the main reasons I came.<\/p>\n \u201cPlus it\u2019s a big club in a big league, so why not?”<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 18-year-old made his England debut in October and says he wants to act as a role model to young players in the English game Jadon Sancho has admitted his favourite player is\u00a0Neymar despite the Brazilian’s reputation for diving and gamesmanship. The 18-year-old winger\u00a0has enjoyed a remarkable start to the season with\u00a0Borussia Dortmund, scoring six…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Editors' Picks<\/h3>\n