DeAndre Yedlin Exclusive: US Star Ready to Make Impact After Slow Start at Spurs
Patience is not a quality DeAndre Yedlin has had much need for during his football career to date.
Still a college player at the University of Akron less than three years ago, in the 18 months that followed, Yedlin made his MLS debut for his hometown Seattle Sounders, became an MLS All-Star, earned his way into the United States’ World Cup squad, became one of the breakout stars of that tournament and then made the switch to Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur.
The right-back signed for Spurs in August, ultimately making the move to London in January. Since then, however, Yedlin has had to do something entirely unfamiliar to one of the quickest players in the game: take it slowly.
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The 21-year-old has yet to start for Spurs in the five months he has been in England—his 11 minutes of first-team action coming in a solitary substitute appearance against Aston Villa in April. That has caused a certain amount of consternation among fans—particularly in the United States—but Yedlin believes it has actually been the best thing for his development.
“Everywhere I’ve been, I’d say I’ve adjusted pretty quickly, but this is taking me a little bit longer,” Yedlin told Bleacher Report. “Of course you want to just get in there and play. But I think in the long run, it is better that they have been patient with me, and it’s better that they’ve allowed me to adapt to life here.
“The fans just see what’s going on on the field, but there’s a lot more that goes into it behind the scenes. It’s good that I’ve been given a certain amount of time to adjust.”
If anything, this period has actually been a bonus. Up until the point he moved to the UK, it seemed possible that Yedlin would remain in Seattle for much of 2015, turning out for the Sounders in MLS. Getting a work permit to move to England was proving difficult; Yedlin even tried to get a Latvian passport, possibly being eligible for that through his mother’s family, to circumvent the problem.
That did not happen, as all parties were pleasantly surprised when the Home Office approved his work permit on the basis of his “exceptional talent.”
“Luckily, it ended up being in January,” he added. “It gave me a foundation to adapt and now hopefully, going into next season, I will be fully adjusted and ready to go.”
Clearly, after paying around £2.5 million ($4 million) for his services, Spurs will be proactive in ensuring the best possible return on their investment. It certainly seems both player and club are in agreement about the best way to oversee Yedlin’s initial transition.
"DeAndre only recently arrived in London,” Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino told Futbol MLS in February (h/t MLSSoccer.com). "We have to work this transition carefully and slowly, giving him the necessary time to be able to acclimate on and off the field. Then, he will be able to show off his qualities.
"But it's obvious that if he's here, it's because we expect much from him."
That has not stopped concerned observers wondering what Yedlin is doing and whether his rise has been stunted by a couple of months without first-team football—or, even more alarmingly, that watching Yedlin up close has forced Spurs to re-evaluate his ability.
“He’s in the right spot because he needs to grow,” Yedlin’s national team boss, Jurgen Klinsmann, reassured fans recently, per Ives Galarcep of Goal.com. “Even if he’s not playing right now, he will grow. It's absolutely the right thing for him to do. It will take time.
“These years are learning years. There are up and downs. There are difficulties."
The 21-year-old trusts the judgement of Klinsmann—especially after the German decided to take him to last summer’s World Cup in Brazil—who is a significant reason why Yedlin is at Spurs. Yedlin took the advice of the coach, along with a number of his Seattle team-mates—Clint Dempsey, Obafemi Martins and Djimi Traore—when deciding between the two offers he had on the table in the summer, Spurs and Italian side AS Roma.
“I think that’s the one thing I really like about Jurgen. He trusts his young players, and he really gives them opportunities,” Yedlin said. “I think it’s the same with Pochettino. That was another big factor in my decision to come here. I knew if I moved, I would get the opportunities if I earned them.”
The World Cup was where Yedlin made his name. His inclusion in Klinsmann’s 23-man squad was a surprise to most, although the news was overshadowed somewhat by Landon Donovan’s unceremonious dumping from the final selection. Klinsmann’s decisions were fully vindicated, though.
Yedlin proved himself with an assist in an 18-minute cameo in the 2-2 draw with Portugal, got another 15 minutes in the loss to Germany and then really caught widespread attention after fellow full-back Fabian Johnson went off injured 30 minutes in to the last-16 match against Belgium.
Klinsmann substituted Yedlin for Johnson. Yedlin then had to play opposite Eden Hazard, this season’s Premier League Player of the Year, and he held the Chelsea winger in check for 90 minutes. The U.S. ultimately lost after extra time, but fans got a glimpse of the raw talent Yedlin possessed.
“There are occasionally those games where you can tell you are just in a groove, [when] you are not really thinking about things [and] everything’s just going right, and it was kind of one of those games,” Yedlin says of that game against Belgium.
It brings to mind the assessment of Yedlin by the youngster’s college coach, Caleb Porter—now head coach of the Portland Timbers and one of the many names tipped to eventually succeed Klinsmann with the USMNT.
“The mind is very powerful,” Porter, told Eight by Eight in October 2014. “It can either hurt you or help you. Yedlin doesn’t worry about what could go wrong. He just goes and plays.”
That is not to say Yedlin is ignorant of what that game, and that tournament, did for him. It turned him from a promising MLS player hardly known outside his homeland to one coveted by some of the biggest teams in Europe.
“I mean, that whole experience was the thing that has skyrocketed my career,” he stated.
Yedlin returned home a star, getting invitations to throw out the first pitch at baseball games and attend the ESPYs while simultaneously attracting 300,000 Twitter followers and attention from the biggest clubs in the sport.
“You know, honestly, if there was nobody else around me, nobody else to tell me, like, ‘Whoa, this is crazy,’ then I wouldn’t really recognise how crazy it was,” Yedlin says. “I think when you are in a moment like that, it is normal. You don’t really think about it. But for people watching it, it’s kind of like with Harry Kane this season. For us watching, it it’s unbelievable; for him, it’s just normal.”
Kane’s success is an obvious reference point for Yedlin—the English striker has become not just a contributor but a star in his first full season in the Premier League, something Yedlin will be hoping to emulate next season. But beyond Kane's incredible rise, Yedlin has taken particular notice of what his team-mate has done to engineer that success.
“He’s a brilliant player, and it’s been inspiring just to see every day how he works, how he prepares,” Yedlin says. “He’s often the first one here, in the gym. He’ll do a session, wait two hours, then do another session, then do shooting practice. He’s so dedicated, and for a guy who’s so young, that makes you want to work harder. It makes you think, you know, ‘What can I do to get better?’ He’s definitely an encouraging presence and inspiration.”
Yedlin cannot be accused of failing to commit himself to life in England. After the World Cup, he could have easily stayed at Seattle, using his new-found fame to negotiate a more lucrative contract while staying where he has lived his whole life.
Instead, he moved, completely alone, to England—challenging himself to adapt to a new culture, a new team and new standards.
“I wanted to do it on my own, do it that way,” Yedlin reflects. “[Staying] definitely entered my mind. Seattle was good for me. I was very comfortable there—not comfortable in terms of it was too easy, but I was at home, I was with my family and friends. It was a great life. I was home.
“But I think, for me, when I get too comfortable with the lifestyle and everything, I feel that my performances, my focus can go down. I wanted to really challenge myself, and now I’m here. I’m living by myself, [and] I have to make new friends. So that part has been a challenge for me, but it’ll be good in the long run.”
On the pitch, the hard work has been extensive. Yedlin started his career as more of a forward and only converted to full-back shortly before entering college, meaning he has a lack of experience in the position that, even during his best moments at the World Cup, was often evident.
What tended to bail Yedlin out, especially in MLS, was his incredible speed over short distances—in FIFA 15, he is among the 20 fastest players, while Vines aplenty exist of his remarkable recovery exploits. But that approach will not work at the Premier League, where the initial tactical mistakes cannot be afforded.
“I’m really trying to work on my defensive positioning,” Yedlin acknowledges. “I think, especially here, you can get killed if your positioning isn’t right, so I think that’s another really big part of my game that I need to work on.
“It’s good because I can watch a lot of games on TV now, so I can study other right-backs and learn from them.”
When fit, Kyle Walker is the first-choice full-back at White Hart Lane, a similar player to Yedlin in many ways. Three years older and already established as a Premier League player—he was named PFA Young Player of the Year in 2012—Walker is both a convenient and inconvenient player to have at such proximity.
Yedlin’s arrival was ostensibly a threat to Walker’s job, yet the England international has actually become the American’s closest confidante at the club.
“It’s pretty cool how he’s taken to me because if there was one player I thought might not want to have much to do with me when I arrived, I thought it would be him,” Yedlin says. “But he’s been absolutely unbelievable—he’s probably my best friend on the team actually. He’s a guy you can tell really cares. He wants me to be around, and he wants me to keep improving so we can keep pushing each other.”
The two are among the quickest players in world football, although there is still a debate over who is faster.
“Honestly, I can’t tell unless we actually race—and that hasn’t happened,” Yedlin says diplomatically. “It’s hard to tell with other players.”
Unlike Arsenal—where another full-back, Hector Bellerin, supposedly holds the record—Tottenham does not hold any timed races.
“We haven’t yet [raced]," Yedlin adds. "I’m sure sometime in the future it will come up.”
He must be confident he could beat Bellerin’s mark—supposedly 4.42 seconds for 40 metres—though, right?
“Yeah, we’ll see. We’ll see.”
Walker is now out injured until the end of the season, raising the possibility that Yedlin could yet make his first Spurs start before the campaign is over. The full-back is really focusing on next term, though, when he hopes to become a consistent presence for Spurs.
Starting in the Premier League on a regular basis may be optimistic, but Spurs’ likely participation in the Europa League could give Pochettino a great opportunity to expose Yedlin to different players and tactical styles from around Europe.
The Europa League was also where Harry Kane started his meteoric rise.
“It was good for us because we gave opportunities to different players to play and compete during the season,” Pochettino told reporters recently. “This is our objective, our challenge, to bring young players from the academy. If they deserve to play, why not?”
Although a loan is not out of the question, that could be how Yedlin progresses next season—regular appearances in the cup and continental competitions, with occasional league cameos as injuries and form dictate.
Participating in the Europa League might be a disappointment for Spurs, who were surely targeting Champions League qualification this season, but Yedlin believes the young profile of the squad means there is huge room for improvement and the Champions League will become a more realistic target over the coming seasons.
“You can tell [and] you can see how it is all being formed,” he says. “The younger players coming, like Dele Alli, and also the ones on loan at the moment, like Alex Pritchard [at Brentford], they are great players. Then there are the ones already here at the club. It’s a very exciting future for the club.”
Therein lies the challenge for Yedlin, of course. Spurs want to be patient with the player for as long as possible to give him the best chance to succeed, but they will not wait indefinitely. The past six months have been a grace period, but from next season on, he will have to earn his opportunities.
“It’s different in Europe,” Porter noted in the aforementioned Eight By Eight article. “You’re not just one of the five or six best players within the entire team. Everyone is as good as you. They can always buy new players, so you’ve got to be consistent.”
Yedlin will not dwell on that reality, of course. Instead, he will keep doing what has served him so well in the past: working hard, studying his peers, trusting his instincts and taking his opportunities.
With luck, that will take him to where he wants to be. It has done so far.
“I just try to take it day by day [and] improve day by day,” Yedlin says. “I think if you do that, then whatever you have as a target will come. I think if you put a timeframe on things, you can start rushing things and getting away from the goals, so I try to take it day by day and make sure I keep improving.”
DeAndre Yedlin on...
Making His Spurs Debut Against Aston Villa
"It was amazing. I think, especially being from America, the Premier League is the highest of the high. Every kid dreams of playing in the Premier League. Everybody watches [it] in America. ... It was unbelievable [to get on the pitch], and the reception I got from the fans was unbelievable as well. It was very cool."
How He's Adapting to Life in England
"It's not that different from Seattle. I think I miss just the size of things in the U.S. It’s just a little bit bigger. It’s not necessarily that it’s bad here, just that I’m used to everything being a bit bigger. You seem to have a bit more space. But honestly, it’s pretty similar to the U.S. I guess I miss the beaches in Los Angeles—but then anyone would."
What He Likes About England
"I like the fashion here. I’m pretty big on fashion, so it’s cool to see the different aspects here compared to American trends."
The Things He Finds Strange About England
"Some of the food—the food in the cafeteria [at Spurs] is good—very good. But elsewhere, some of the names [are off-putting], such as bubble and squeak. I’ve never had it, but the name just makes me not want to try it!"
His Summer Plans
"There are international games next month. We play the Netherlands and then Germany, so that’s a tough couple of games. Then I’ll head back to Seattle for about five days and try to relax [and] have a vacation. Well, half vacation, half training for the Gold Cup, which we've got coming up this summer."
His Hairstyles
"I’m actually growing [my hair] out to do something with it. I have something in mind. I’ve been kind of doing that now for the last five or six months. For me, sometimes I like to go through haircuts quickly—I get tired of one really quickly, so after a week I change it, change it again [and] change it again. So I’ve been deciding what I want to do with it."
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