“I can’t wait to see my teammates again, go out on the field, play football with a smile on my face, receive assists, score goals and help the club qualify for the Champions League,” proclaimed Jadon Sancho (24 years; Camberwell, England) when in the last winter market Borussia Dortmund, his former club, rescued him from the ordeal he was experiencing at Manchester United under the orders of the Spartan Eric Ten Haag. The Dutch coach kept him away from the team since the beginning of September, arguing poor performance in training and indiscipline on the part of a player who was recruited from Borussia Dortmund itself in the summer of 2021 for 85 million euros. “Jadon Sancho will remain in a personal training program outside the first team group, waiting for a discipline problem to be resolved,” Ten Haag announced to the British press. Sancho did not consent to this attack from his coach and set social networks on fire with his response. “Please don’t believe everything you read. I will not allow people to say things that are completely false. I have forced myself to train very well this week. I think there are other reasons for this issue that I won’t go into. “I have been a scapegoat for a long time, which is not fair,” Sancho wrote defiantly.
The relationship was never mended between the rigid Central European character of Ten Haag and the graceful Caribbean character of Sancho, rooted on his parents’ side with Trinidad and Tobago. In December, the coach returned to the fray. “Jadon (Sancho) knows what he has to do if he wants to return and it depends on him. It’s about a culture and every player has to meet certain standards. “Everything depends on that,” said the Dutch coach. Sancho couldn’t hold out any longer and his agent begged the United ownership for a loan to Dortmund.
Jadon Sancho has never handled substitutions well. At the age of 17, he left Manchester City in 2017 because he sensed that with Pep Guardiola he would not have a guaranteed place in the first team. Sancho tried to include in a renewal that was never signed a clause that would guarantee him minutes in the first team. His demands were not accepted and he signed with Dortmund, with which in his first stage he recorded 50 goals and 64 assists in 147 games. At United, in two and a half seasons he played 82 games in which he scored 12 goals and provided six assists. Sancho never felt important at Old Trafford. He felt like a victim of poor planning. When he arrived at the club under the direction of the innovative Ralf Rangnick, it had up to six wingers including Marcus Rashford, Antony, Greenwood, Garnacho, Elanga and James. Too much competition left and right in a team in which the center of the attack was occupied by Cristiano Ronaldo.
After the arrival of Ten Haag in April 2022, Sancho experienced a notable decline. He played as if disenchanted. Nothing to do with what he seems to feel again in Dortmund. “He went through a difficult phase and after the winter he returned to training. It was important for him to train, but it was clear that he lacked rhythm. By working he has recovered it, on Saturday he had good moments in attack, he is very difficult to defend. He is an artist like many other players who have talent like Adeyemi or Moukoko and who also works in defense,” concludes Edin Terzić, the coach with Sancho trying to regain his smile.
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