Days away from his first major international tournament, there was a possibility that Kevin Danso could have been pulling on an England shirt this summer.
Born in Austria to Ghanaian parents, the Lens centre-back moved to the UK aged six, a childhood in Milton Keynes spent playing football everywhere from the gated courts of St Paul’s school to the MK Dons academy.
It was a decade later – at just 16 years old – that he accepted the call from Augsburg that would transform his career – like Jude Bellingham, Jadon Sancho, Ademola Lookman, everything that has followed since is testament to the bravery of young players who are willing to gamble on a move overseas. When Austria kick off their European Championship campaign against France on 17 June, it means Danso will be the man tasked with stopping Kylian Mbappe.
“He only needs half a chance,” Danso tells i. “Half a yard and he can make the difference. At the moment, for me he’s the best player in the world no doubt, alongside Vinicius Jr and Jude Bellingham. It’s really not giving him the slightest of chances, because if he gets that, he will normally punish you.”
Austria have taken huge strides since appointing Ralf Rangnick, the German head coach who left Manchester United after a difficult spell as interim manager succeeding Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Even in the absence of injured captain David Alaba – who will travel as a “non-playing captain” – Danso believes his side can become this summer’s “dark horse” now that they have developed a “clear identity”.
Without Alaba, it may well be 20-year-old Leopold Querfeld lining up alongside Danso in defence, with Freiburg’s Michael Gregoritsch, Borussia Dortmund’s Marcel Sabitzer and RB Leipzig’s Christoph Baumgartner the key men in attack.
“We are a really good team, a really well-coached team and everybody really understands the philosophy,” Danso says. “From the Nations League, when the coach came in, we’ve made a huge progression and you see it by the way we play. We’ve really learned how to play against the bigger teams and get a result in our favour.
“He knows exactly how he wants to play, even his coaching staff around him are amazing. We always make sure everything we do is top notch and that’s how we try to play, as a top notch unit. He really emphasises that everything we do, we do it together, that’s our strength.”
Danso, who is speaking to i from his half-holiday, half-training camp in Marbella, holds a unique advantage against France, as the only member of the squad playing in Ligue 1 (Clermont’s Muhammed Cham has been named only as a reserve). Lens goalkeeper Brice Samba is in the French squad and inevitably, Danso says there has been “a bit of banter”.
The other side of the coin is that while he is now settled in France, Danso’s is already a career which has been spent on the move – and i understands he is already being eyed by clubs in England and Italy this summer. He has dealt with nostalgia and uncertainty in equal measure, speaking to family and friends from home every day on WhatsApp.
It first struck him at 16, on a night when despite recently having become a professional footballer, his friends were the ones wearing tuxedos and pulling up to Wilton Hall, on the outskirts of Milton Keynes, in limousines.
“The time I most felt homesick was when I saw everybody’s snaps [Snapchats] from prom,” he laughs.
“That was the hardest point for me because I was like, ‘I could have been at prom!’. But it was all worth it in the end because I’m living my dream. You don’t understand! Everybody was there. That’s the first time it really hit me. Ah man. But from that point, I really decided it’s all in. It was sad and that’s when it hit the most, I was really upset about it. But I always had that mentality even though I was upset or homesick, I’m doing this for the rest of my life.”
Indeed despite the example set by players like Bellingham, Danso admits leaving English football can be a daunting prospect that is not necessarily for everyone.
“It all depends on your situation at your club, everybody’s path is different,” he insists.
“Sometimes in football from an early age, especially in England, because there’s so much money and so much hype involved, it’s good to get away from that and just focus on what you need to do.
“When you go overseas, the hype is a bit less and you have to just concentrate on what you have to work through. For me it was the best decision I made, because you weren’t so much in the spotlight and did what you had to do to make the dream a reality. I do recommend it but it’s not easy, you have to be mentally tough and willing to make that sacrifice.
“I’m always willing to take risks, it kind of gave me a mentality that whatever the case is, whatever situation you’re in, you have to make it work for you – it’s difficult, it’s a sacrifice, but to achieve your dream you have to make sacrifices and I just see everything as just a sacrifice in order to achieve my goals.
“I thought, ‘I’m not going to move to Germany, leave all my friends behind and my family just to not go and make it’. So I was like, ‘you have to make it’, and that’s the mindset I went in with. Do everything with 100 per cent attitude and it will pay off.”
Danso did make a brief return to England with Southampton, a spell interrupted by Covid, tainted by the club being dragged into a relegation battle in the first half of the 2019-20 season, and in which he was also required to play out of position at full-back. Nonetheless, that time at St Mary’s has proven invaluable.
“Before Southampton, at that stage of my career, everything was on the up and that was the first time I had a little dip and I think it was important. That’s the time I learned most about myself and what it takes, what I need to do to continue to progress every step of the way.
“That just helped me immensely because seeing that environment, the environment I always dreamed of being in, once you got there maybe you kind of take a backseat and think, ‘I finally achieved my goal of playing in the Premier League’.
“I took it too easy – well, not too easy, but I kind of took my foot off the gas, I was cruising rather than keeping my foot on the pedal. I realised you always have to have your foot on the gas and keep going.
“It was the best thing that happened to me and luckily it was early in my career. The earlier you realise, the better it is. It’s helped me so much and that’s why you see the Kevin Danso you see today, who’s always got his foot on the gas.”
That has certainly been true at Lens, where the 25-year-old was named in the Ligue 1 Team of the Year in 2023, success that even prompted links with Manchester United after he was singled out for praise by Rio Ferdinand.
“He was one of my centre-back role models,” Danso says. “He played in the best centre-back partnership in Manchester United history, [Nemanja] Vidic and Ferdinand.
“I used to watch his videos, how he used to defend. To have somebody like that even to know my name, to know who I am, was mind-boggling to me. I just want to be on these people’s radar so it must mean you’re doing something well. It’s flattering, but being in the Premier League helped me to remember you’ve got to keep your foot on the gas to keep working.”
Danso now hopes a starring role this summer can help to inspire the young players at the Vision in Motion academy in Ghana run by his agent, Emmanuel, and his brother, Josef. He has set the standard with an astonishing rise from playing alongside childhood friends – they include Rotherham United wing-back Peter Kioso and West Brom’s Brendan Thomas Asante – to the European Championship.
At the academy, Danso insists his own contribution has been limited to sending a few boots and offering “words of wisdom” during visits in the holidays. “Kevin is being a bit humble there,” Emmanuel interjects. “He goes there every summer, trains them, supports generously financially. He gives them a lot of time.”
“Giving them a few days out of my summer is nothing to me,” Danso insists. “Because I understand what it means to work your whole life to achieve a dream. Some of these kids come from situations where they wouldn’t otherwise have an opportunity – they might otherwise not have been seen by the world.
“But where you start doesn’t matter. It’s where you finish.”
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