Declan Rice is a bonafide star. Last year he set a new record with his £105 million move from West Ham to Arsenal, making him one of the most expensive English players in history. He is England’s number 4 and a likely contender to be the country’s next captain. This week the Uefa Euro 2024 kicks off in Munich, and on Sunday England will play Serbia. “We want to make history,” Rice said on his way to the airport on Monday. The weight on his shoulders is greater than ever, as manager Gareth Southgate has asked him to step up as dressing room leader, now that he is the most senior midfielder.
Rice and I meet where it all began: at Dickerage Sports and Community Centre in his hometown of Kingston upon Thames. The newly renovated pitch has reopened following investment from Müller as part of Rice’s ongoing partnership with the brand. It was there that he played five-a-side in his spare time while already a member of the Chelsea academy, which he joined aged seven.
“I used to be there every day when I wasn’t training, and I could practice what I’d been told to work on by Chelsea,” he has written. Today, he tells me: “This was the place where I felt safe and happy. Coming here gave me the confidence to know that I could interact with people over a game I love, and grow as a person.”
He is there to give back, playing five-a-side with scores of children to whom he is a hero. The queue for photos and autographs builds for hours even as it starts to rain. There isn’t anyone for whom Rice doesn’t make the time, smiling for every picture and signing every football that comes his way — despite feeling “overwhelmed”. “I’m quite a laid back person,” he says. “When I walked through the gate [earlier] I didn’t want all the attention in a way. It’s hard to think about the fact that I used to be one of those kids, looking at where I am now… It just happened so quick.”
Two years after joining West Ham at youth level aged 14, Rice signed his first professional contract with the club. He won the Premier League Cup in 2016 with the under-21s. His rise hasn’t been easy. “You have to make a lot of sacrifices,” he says, to play professionally at such a young age. In his case, though, it has more than paid off. Today he is part of a rarefied group of English footballers who are as celebrated off the pitch as they are on it. It means a responsibility “to speak out on matters,” Rice says, “and to make [football] a safe sport for everyone.”
One has to wonder what’s in the back of his mind with a statement like this. Earlier this year, his long-term girlfriend Lauren Fryer, with whom he has a one-year-old son, Jude, was the subject of abusive chants directed toward Rice by Chelsea supporters. She had already deleted her social media accounts after online trolls told her she wasn’t good enough for Rice. Fans came out in her defence and called on Chelsea to ban those involved from the stadium. Rice knows he has the power to shift the dial. “People like me and other England players that have high profiles can push things in the right direction,” he says. He doesn’t name the problem at hand — the misogyny still rampant among certain fans — but he doesn’t have to.
It’s clear the women’s cause is important to him. “If you look at the growth of football over the last 15 years, you can see it’s become a sport for everyone,” he says, citing “the growth of the women’s game” as one of the biggest positives. “I speak to Leah Williamson [captain of England’s women’s team] all the time to get her side of things. And look at how many girls are here today, supporting this.” Today’s games see boys and girls playing alongside one another on mixed teams.
Being 25 means stepping into a more senior position on the pitch while still having a lot to learn. Rice said recently that he was “not a penalty-taker”: the nerves still get to him. He has built around himself an ironclad and iron-fisted team. In conversation, he plays his cards close to his chest, giving little away. He is fit, hawklike and over six feet tall; a hardened central defensive midfielder. He eats four pancakes before every Arsenal game and plans to replicate this before England’s games. What makes him think England has a better chance of winning this time around?
“I think the team has got more experience,” he says. “The squad level is stronger.” Much of this has to do with the Premier League becoming more competitive. It used to be “Man United and Chelsea winning every season, whereas now you’ve got the Liverpools, the [Manchester] Citys, the Arsenals.” That more of England’s players now know what it’s like to win “puts us in good stead”, Rice says.
So too do the squad’s past failures. “We know what we’ve got to do to win,” he says. “We’ve got no excuses.” For all his talent, Rice has often brought home silver instead of gold, getting to the final of the previous Euros and losing to Italy on penalties. In his first season at Arsenal, the club ended a close second behind Manchester City in the Premier League.
But those setbacks have only made him more determined. “The Euros are the last thing now that can really help me get over the hurt,” he says. “Seeing Italy lift that cup in front of us last time: that feeling’s still in our belly. We want to get that now.” England did lose to Iceland in a friendly last week raising familiar fears.
It’s a quick turnaround between the Premier League and the Euros, and any friction that might exist between players must be swiftly put aside for the sake of the squad. Part of that is done with eye-catching team-building exercises, which have made headlines in years past. This year England are staying at a five-star resort in Blankenhain, eastern Germany, with golf courses to fill their time away from the pitch. More specific items on the schedule remain secret, but if the Euros 2020 are anything to go by (a serenade by Ed Sheeran after reaching the knock-out stage; Marcus Rashford leaping onto an inflatable unicorn in a pool before the final), this year’s will be similarly entertaining.
If the squad ever do meet as a whole outside championship season, they haven’t thought to see Dear England together: James Graham’s award-winning West End play about Southgate and his relationship with the squad following the 2018 World Cup in Russia, where England made the semi-finals, the team’s defeat against Italy and its quarter final exit from the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Rice seems unfamiliar with it.
What he is familiar with are the play’s themes: modern masculinity and what it means to be English. Rice feels an “inner push”, “when you know you’re about to play for your country, and you have everyone’s eyes on you”. English football is always under harsh scrutiny. Already, Nike have faced backlash this year for adding supposedly “playful” shades of red, purple and blue to the St George’s Cross on the back of the England shirt collar.
But Rice is prepared. “Putting on that shirt before a major tournament again: that is such a good feeling,” he beams. “I feel like we’re ready… I’m ready.”
