Jay Haddow’s journey to international football was far from a straightforward one: born in Hong Kong to parents from the United Kingdom and Japan, he moved to England, alone, as a 12-year-old, had overtures to play for Scotland before finally becoming a Japan youth international against Comoros in southern France.
That came at the prestigious Maurice Revello tournament (formerly the Toulon Tournament) last month where he followed that debut with a starting appearance in the play-off stage against an Argentina side coached by former Barcelona great Javier Mascherano.
To cap off a whirlwind couple of months, the 18-year-old then signed his first professional terms with English Championship side Blackburn Rovers to formally commence what he hopes will be a lengthy career in the pros.
If it wasn’t for a couple of globetrotting parents though it would be a story that’s not being told.
Haddow’s father decided to go backpacking after finishing his studies and following time in India he made his way to Hong Kong where he met a Japanese woman who had shifted to the city-state to work.
That saw Haddow born and grow up in Hong Kong, where he came through the prestigious Kitchee academy having spent countless hours learning the game with friends in his local neighbourhood and under the watch of his father.
“Honestly from the moment I was born and kicked my first football I always knew that I wanted to do this and I would say that when I joined Kitchee that was the first stepping stone to taking things more seriously,” he told The Asian Game Podcast.
“My Dad and I were always out training, it’s very hot and humid in Hong Kong so we’d go out at six in the morning to train, train hard, he’d go to work and I’d go to school so it was a lot of passion, dedication and commitment and I always knew this is what I wanted to do.”
That commitment quickly led to an offer to visit Aston Villa for a two-week training stint at the age of 11 which further lit the fire for a young Haddow and saw him return fulltime to England a year later.
“I’d always been told by coaches in Hong Kong that if I really wanted to take things seriously that the best move is to go to the United Kingdom and try and pursue football there,” he explained.
“One of the most crucial football moments was those two weeks at Aston Villa because it really opened my eyes to what the level was like around the world for players my age and when I came back to Hong Kong it really motivated me even more to work even harder, get better, train more and commit more knowing that the guys in England were on a different level to me.
“I put my head down and trained even harder, every day, whether at Kitchee or one-on-one sessions with my Dad, and coaches kept telling me that I had to get to England so we looked at a few football schools and spoke to a few people and I ended up joining a school up in Lancashire that had a partnership with Blackburn Rovers.”
Living in a boarding school was a tough initiation on the path to professional football, away from his parents and friends on the other side of the world.
What it provided a young Haddow though was the perfect platform on which to grow, develop and learn and over his almost half-a-dozen years in the Blackburn youth setup he rubbed shoulders with some of the best young players on the planet and played at some iconic English venues, as he tells The Asian Game.
“Ever since moving to England and signing for Blackburn I’ve played against the top players in the country, week-in, week-out, and you learn a lot from those experiences.
“In England we also play in Cups so I had that experience of going on a Cup run in the U14s where we lost in the final and they were really high pressure games where we also got to play in Premier League stadiums.
“We played Leicester at the King Power Stadium and you’re given that experience as a professional player at such a young age, 13 or 14, and you learn from those experiences and realise that those Cup games matter.
“You’re put in those situations from a young age and it prepares you for big tournaments down the track if you make it as a professional player in the Premier League or the Championship or the FA Cup, League Cup etc then you’re well prepped for those situations.”
Haddow estimates that he’s played around 40 matches per season and sees that as the ideal preparation for young players, especially at a club like Blackburn that takes genuine care of their youth prospects both on and off the pitch.
Eligible to play for Scotland, England or Japan at international level, the right-sided fullback or wingback quickly came onto the Japanese radar and when the call-up came to join the squad at the Maurice Revello tournament it was the fulfilment of a childhood dream.
“Growing up I’ve always wanted to represent Japan and I’ve always supported Japan at World Cups and AFC Cups and Japan is just very big in my heart,” he explained.
“So when I got the call it was a very proud moment for myself and my Mum but even my Dad pushed me to play for Japan because he knows how much it means for me to play for Japan.
“That doesn’t stop me from getting called up for Scotland and I have been called up for a camp that got cancelled because at youth level any experience of international football is vitally important.”
Japan finished second in their group in France with a squad that contained more than half a dozen players who have seen regular J.League action over the past couple of seasons and that hit home to Haddow just how impressive a group of young talents the nation has.
“The whole experience with Japan was fantastic, it was a two and a half week camp with the tournament and fixtures in between and training every day with these fantastic players I learned so much and took so much from that, including things that I know I have to work on if I want to get called up again and I’ll continue to work on that back at Blackburn.
“Japan like to play a high press with high intensity which is something I haven’t been doing with Blackburn over the last two years so that was also a learning curve to play a different style.
“With Blackburn it was a lot of five at the back, I was playing right wingback and it wasn’t a lot of high press, it was sometimes sitting back and counterattacking whereas with Japan it was a high press, trying to force errors and capitilise as quick as we can.
“I was playing a year up so most of the guys were a year older but there were many good players, the likes of Shinya Nakano who already has more than 50 games of J.League experience, he’s a leftback, centre back and right back and watching him with just how composed and experienced and calm he was in pressure situations I can learn a lot from that.”
He continued: “There were also other players such as Sota Kitano who plays for Cerezo Osaka and Riku Yamane who plays for Yokohama F. Marinos, but the whole team was really good with a lot of fantastic technical players and that’s the main difference between Japan and England with how technical the footballers are over in Japan.
“In England, it’s a lot of physical, tactical and technical as a mix but in Japan a lot of it is based on technical football and that’s why the first touch, the passing ability, the vision and the composure is very high with the Japanese players.”
Having grown up speaking Japanese with his mother the adaptation wasn’t as hard as it otherwise might have been for Haddow and he was quick to praise the professional setup and welcoming nature of his teammates.
“I can speak conversational Japanese, not fluent, but I wanted to make sure that I spoke Japanese to them so they didn’t need to make the extra effort, on top of all the competition itself, to speak English to me and the team helped me a lot and were good to communicate with and to.”
The goals for the promising young defender are now to try and keep developing his game, perhaps with a loan move in England whilst also continuing to grow at international level with Japan.
“I like short-term goals,” he said. “Obviously the long-term goal is to be a regular playing in the first team – but in the current moment short term goals are very crucial and ideally I’d like to play adults football, maybe go out on loan to the lower leagues and get some adult football.
“In football there’s some stuff you can only learn by playing adult football and it’s very difficult to be thrown right into, especially the Championship, where Blackburn Rovers currently are which is probably one of the most difficult leagues in the whole world in terms of the speed and the physical side of the game so it’s crucially important for myself and other players to get adult experience in the lower leagues.
“With Japan, the coaching staff at the Maurice Revello tournament were mentioning that this is all preparation for qualification competitions in the future which are vitally important and everyone is looking forward to that and working even harder to get the call-up and represent Japan and that’s something that, if I do get selected, Blackburn will definitely be open to that.”
Photo: IG/jayhaddow
Listen to The Asian Game Podcast as we go In Conversation With… Jay Haddow
