Jermain Defoe takes centre stage, quite literally.
For over two decades Defoe was acquainted with finding space in and around the penalty area – deadly to opponents with 162 Premier League goals to his name, only eight players have scored more. Here though, Defoe finds himself in that area of the field once more, only this time it’s to provide a demonstration to a young group of children he is overseeing as part of the launch of a new football academy in the region.
The ethos behind the 41-year-old former Sunderland, Tottenham Hotspur and England striker setting up a new football academy are tenfold, with the idea being to provide both male and female students with the opportunity to develop their football talent while also benefiting from academic tuition. But there is also another element to it. Defoe’s aspirations are a far cry from the bleak, misty weather submerged around East Durham where he is promoting the launch of his academy. This is just another step on his journey to taking his first job in the dugout in senior football.
“It was something I've always thought about doing,” Defoe says, speaking to We Are Sunderland at the launch of the Jermain Defoe Academy at East Durham College.
“Even when I was a player, my association [with Sunderland], I'm a patron of the Bradley Lowery Foundation. I fell in love with the place when I came up here. I've always wanted to give back and I thought to do something like this would be special. Coming from London, I understand there's probably a lot more opportunity in London. But to be able to give these kids an opportunity and some direction was my thinking really.
“I remember when I signed saying to my family members it reminded me of East London, that hard work ethic. I realised the people up here, they work hard, buy their season tickets, come and watch the team. The level of support is incredible. I fell in love with the place. I always come back for games and I wanted to do something that was long-term and I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes.”
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Defoe’s affiliation for Sunderland is one of those unparalleled examples, similar to the likes of Niall Quinn and Kevin Phillips – players from outside the region buying into what this place represent, from the ship workers and miners of yesteryear to the continued passion and pride of a city by the sea, built upon its heritage and its football.
Defoe made 93 appearances for Sunderland across a two-and-a-half-year spell in the Premier League, scoring 37 goals, before making a sentimental return to the club in League One in 2022, taking his appearances to a milestone 100 before retiring from football prior to the club’s promotion back to the Championship.
Although billed as ‘The Last Dance’ upon his return, in homage to legendary Chicago Bulls basketball icon Michael Jordan, Defoe’s second coming did not go as planned. But his legacy remains intact, and it’s a legacy which could yet extend in the future.
Defoe has been earning his stripes since retiring two years ago, dipping his toes into the world of coaching, working through his badges with Tottenham’s academy. And yet he has always kept an eye on events at the Stadium of Light, including a visit in January for the FA Cup third round tie with Newcastle United.
“I enjoyed being there, obviously not the result,” he joked. “It’s a special stadium. I always enjoy coming back.”
But does Defoe have one eye on coming back in a more permanent capacity?
With Sunderland’s Championship season at a loss heading into the final weeks of what has been a turbulent campaign, the head coach vacancy at the Stadium of Light is one which will interest several parties this summer – including their former marksman, who has not been afraid to tap into his contacts book for advice.
“Why not,” he says of the Sunderland job. “Even when I was a player, I always used to say I'd love to manage this club. I don't know if other players are like that, if other players have a relationship with fans and a club and think they'd love to manage this club.
“I played with Paulo Di Canio, he went on to manage and managed this club, John O'Shea, Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, I spoke to Antonio Conte when he was at Tottenham last season about his journey into the game. I spoke with Gareth Southgate – I was lucky enough to sit down with Gareth on one of my courses for two or three hours and talk to him about his journey at Middlesbrough, going from being captain to all of a sudden getting a call in the summer asking him to become manager. Everyone's journey is different.
“If I got a phone call now and they said ‘do you want to be Sunderland manager?’ When you’ve had these dreams, it’d be a dream because I understand it’s a massive club, it’s a Premier League club.
“There’s been loads of names linked, and I understand that,” he continues. “The crazy thing is, everyone is going to want this job. So that tells you that this is such an amazing opportunity.
“I saw Dwight Yorke talking about it recently – someone who I looked up to. So, everyone is going to want this job. I speak to Brace [Paul Bracewell] all the time, he’ll message me and say ‘JD, get your CV in’ because he knows how much I love football.
“As part of my course I went to Burnley and I sat down with Vincent Kompany for about three hours. I spoke to him about his journey, and about Pep [Guardiola], and I watched the way that he does things, in terms of his training and his recruitment. And recruitment is important. You talk about recruitment as just players, but I think it’s staff as well because if you get it wrong then you could have problems.
“I go back to thinking about someone like Eddie Howe, when I played under Eddie and how he did things and his attention to detail and the people he had around him. All these different experiences will hopefully help me going forward.
“But if I got a phone call from Kristjaan [Speakman] or Kyril [Louis-Dreyfus], get me my suit, get me my whistle and let’s go and win games. It’s as simple as that. These are my people. I know.”
Defoe’s confidence is as admirable as his devastating proficiency was in front of goal as a player. It stems from an ‘obsession’ he believes you must have if you are to achieve success in football, something he attained as an apprentice at Lilleshall academy as part of an impressive alumni of England scholars.
He is meticulous in his approach and his attention to detail. As a trainee with West Ham United, he would often steer towards the first team environment and hang on the coattails of the likes of Frank Lampard and Rio Ferdinand to hone his craft further, always of the belief he would get his opportunity. Later in his career it was his focus on sports nutrition and recovery which allowed him to be in a position whereby he could return to the Stadium of Light at the age of 39.
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As a coach-in-waiting, it’s no different for Defoe. Where he could have moved into a more lucrative standing in football punditry, Defoe moved back into grass roots to develop his methods. He still analyses games as if her were in the studio as a pundit, he even analyses first team training sessions to see where he can enhance his approach. Combined with the contacts and experience he has at his disposal to lean on, Defoe is confidently building a substantial toolkit to move into first team management – to the point he is assured in himself on how a hypothetical meeting with Sunderland’s ownership group would go if he were afforded an interview for the role.
“The most important thing is knowing who you'll take with you and I've got that,” he says. “I won't mention names, but I know exactly who I'd bring in.
“When you look at the current squad of young players, I hear people talk about needing experience. My experience is working with young players, understanding what they need and it forces you to coach.
“When you're dealing with young players, if I walk into a first team environment you can sit back and think this is great, but with young players it forces you to coach and it's the detail you have to give them.
“The coaches who I'm working with, one of the coaches has coached in the academy for 17 years. Another one has managed and coached me here at Sunderland [Bracewell]. Me and Brace are so close. He's experienced, a great player. I'm getting all these gems from experienced coaches.
“The other one is a young coach who has the same love for the game as me, he's obsessed. You have to be obsessed with the game, I say that to young players all the time. A lot of young players don't watch football now and that blows my mind. It's so important to watch football, not just being on the grass and training, but watching players in your position. Even now, I go home and watch games.”
One thing you would associate Defoe with being able to enhance is the productivity of Sunderland’s attacking players – particularly this season where their current quartet of strikers, Mason Burstow, Nazariy Rusyn, Luis Hemir and Eliezer Mayenda, have failed to register double-figures in terms of goals scored between them.
“You talk about centre-forwards, and I had a conversation with Alan Shearer and Michael Owen about it recently," says Defoe. "Where are the number nines? Why are there none now? There are forward players. Young kids want to do tricks, but I’m talking about killers who want to get in the box and score goals, like a Haaland. That elite mentality to say I’m here to score goals and that’s it.
"I’ve seen young goalscorers out there, and they make the difference. Even just through conversation, I’ve spoken to players at different clubs and I’ve said, ‘If I got a job, would you come and play with me?’ They’ve said they would love to come and play for me. I’m talking about top young players."
Another head coach Defoe is familiar with, and who he has shared dialogue with, which has also allowed him to shape his own idea of Sunderland’s squad is Michael Beale. Defoe and Beale shared time together with Rangers where he remains impressed by the methods of his coaching ability, and with Beale having held a first-hand view of the inner workings at the Stadium of Light he is another important contact to have as he looks to advance his post-playing career.
Beale’s time on Wearside unravelled almost as quickly as Defoe’s second spell with the club after he was sacked just 63 days into the job – Defoe confirming his retirement 52 days on from his second coming. Defoe, however, still holds Beale in high regard, having been in conversation with the 43-year-old during his time in the North East, with Beale of the belief his former striker has what it takes to develop in that side of the game.
“I spoke to him when he was at Sunderland because he wanted to do well,” says Defoe. “He spoke to me straight away and asked where is good to live. He spoke about the club, the expectation, the demand from the fans, everything. He was so desperate to do well and he’s a confident guy. He’s coached for 20-odd years.
“He told me at Rangers that I could be a manager now, and that if he was my assistant, he said ‘you just tell me how you want to play and I’ll deliver it’. You have to win at Rangers. If you come second, you might as well come last. Being exposed to that pressure is really good for coaches. He’s had that experience and hopefully he’ll get in again somewhere and I know if I get a job that I will need experience around me.
“I loved Mick at Rangers,” he adds. “You talk about detail and for me, even at the back end of my career, I learned a lot from him. You go into an environment and think you know the game but I spent a lot of time sitting with Mick. It was around lockdown and we’d have voice notes that were five minutes long about football and his journey, coaching young players and what you need to do, stuff that you don’t think about as a player.
“I’ve always thought that if you put on a session that you just stand there and coach, but even little things like your position. When I started, I would go onto the pitch and stand in the number nine position because that’s what I’m used to. A coach said to me, where did I stand? He said you’re so used to standing there because for 25 years that’s where you were, but you can’t see everything.
“Mick told me to change my position so you can see everything. I want to do it right, I don’t want to be one of these players that may not do well in a first job and then never gets another one. That’s why the academy is important, so I can make my mistakes and then be ready when the job comes.”
The idea of Defoe taking charge at the Stadium of Light may seem as fairytale as it does nightmare. But Sunderland’s philosophy of promoting youth and recruiting young players to develop is something which appeals to Defoe – and with Will Still, 31-year-old head coach of French Ligue 1 side Reims still high on Sunderland’s radar, the idea of an inexperienced head coach taking over suddenly does not seem so far-fetched.
Defoe, however, knows he may have to work his way up. League Two, League One, it doesn’t matter to him, as long as the role is right.
But Defoe, like many other black coaches, faces the difficulty of being given a leading role. Dwight Yorke, a player Defoe referenced himself, and Sol Campbell are two high-profile ex-professionals who have found it difficult to break the door down for regular consideration when it comes to managerial vacancies. It’s why his academy work with Tottenham, and launching academy schools such as this one in East Durham remain important to Defoe in shaping what his future in the game will look like.
“There has to be some sort of demand but you have to be realistic,” he says. “If I got a League One job, I’m not going to walk in and believe the players are senior internationals. You want them to get there eventually, and you talk about players like Ivan Toney and Ollie Watkins and where they have come from. Kevin Phillips. Ian Wright. Just because you’re at a certain level doesn’t mean you can’t get to the top. It’s about developing players and having to coach.
“It's hard. It always has been, in terms of black managers. I think it's 4.4 per cent or whatever it is. I don't think that should stop me from wanting to go down that route.
“I love football, everyone knows that, I've always loved football. I was lucky enough to have a good career and then you finish football and for me that transition has been quite smooth because I went straight into coaching. Some players finish playing and might not want to do anything for a year. But I know the feeling I get from being on the grass. Even now, just putting my boots on and being on the grass and planning sessions and learning from the coaches around me and watching managers and learning from them. I love it.
“A big part of management is not just setting up the sessions or finishing drills, it's knowing how to manage people. I do that naturally anyway with younger players. When I was a younger player I was lucky, I had good senior players around me - people I still speak to now. So when I got into that position, it was quite natural for me to manage the changing room and the players. I think that, for me, is my thinking around wanting to be a manager.
“When you're coaching in the academy it's great because you can make your mistakes and learn because it’s about developing players, but just that importance of getting three points on a weekend - I miss that feeling. Hopefully I can get an opportunity at some stage.”
Defoe's imprint on the North East is already firmly established, given his ties to Sunderland and his commendable love, care and attention to Bradley Lowery, a young supporter who sadly lost his fight to stage 4 high risk neuroblastoma, a rare and aggressive form of childhood cancer, at the age of just six. Defoe would regularly visit Bradley in the hospital and at home with the 41-year-old believing it was his duty to try and 'put a smile on his face' throughout what was difficult time.
And that notion of putting smiles on faces centres around the decision to launch his academy here in the North East as he looks to give back to a community which holds him in such high regard - and who knows, we may see someone from this academy follow in his footsteps at the Stadium of Light in the future.
But where there is satisfaction in establishing an academy in the region, the burning desire remains inside of Defoe to one day find himself on the touchline doing this for real.
"When you start coaching it's important you put your ego aside and forget what you've done as a player because coaching is different," he says. "You have to start at the bottom. All the knowledge is in there but how do I pass that on?
"In terms of how I'd want to play, the team I'd take with me, I'm ready to go. You need to be ready."
Defoe’s ‘Last Dance’ with Sunderland, in the end, failed to measure up to the hype and adulation it received. But how about a three-peat? Only this time in the dugout.
*Jermain Defoe was speaking exclusively to We Are Sunderland at the launch of The Jermain Defoe Academy at East Durham College. To find out more about the Academy and how to apply before the first course in September 2024, head to www.edc.ac.uk
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