As a teenage Jermain Defoe set about making his name at West Ham United and the Premier League as a whole, he could not have asked for a greater Upton Park role model.
One of the later members of that ‘Golden Generation’ of West Ham United kids, coming a few years after Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard, as well as an FA Youth Cup winning side containing Michael Carrick and a baby-faced Joe Cole, Jermain Defoe’s emergence around the turn of the century coincided with the arrival of a bonafide claret and blue icon.
It is easy to forget, such is his legacy, that Harry Redknapp took ‘a big gamble’ bringing Paolo di Canio to East London from Sheffield Wednesday back in January 1999.
Finish the sentence: My favourite Paolo di Canio memory is… ?
The madcap Italian arrived on the back of an eleven-match ban for that infamous shove on referee Paul Alcock, after all.
Yet, if there were any fears that Di Canio’s combustibility would overshadow his class, the former Juventus, Milan, Napoli and Celtic forward would dispel those with a series of wondrous finishes, each more mesmerising than the last.
Jermain Defoe explains why he loved watching Paolo di Canio at West Ham United
For a fresh-faced Defoe, who had already taken an interest in nutrition, sleep cycles and training methods, Di Canio’s enduring brilliance was all the confirmation he needed about the benefits of a relentless work-ethic.
“He was just like a maverick. He was just such a character. Different to anything I’ve seen,” Defoe tells Suited and Booted TV. “I was just obsessed with Paolo. He used to fascinate me.
“I used to watch him in training. He was the best trainer every day. When the first team was off, I remember one day I came in, and in the distance I could see someone running on his own. I asked, ‘Who’s that?’. ‘It’s Paolo.’ ‘Yeah, but the first team are off today.’ ‘Well, he doesn’t take days off, does he?’
“Wow… So, that’s why he was the best player. I thought, ‘OK then.’ I used to watch him in the gym. Everything he did was just elite. Everything.”
Glenn Roeder found out first hand how Di Canio dealt with disappointment
There was, though, still the odd blow up. Arch-man-manager Harry Redknapp might have been able to contain Di Canio’s more volcanic elements for the most part, but not everybody was blessed with ‘Uncle Harry’s knack for a soothing arm-around-the-shoulder.
“He was just mad, honestly, some of the stories. Even now, if he was here, he would start laughing,” Defoe recalls. “We played against Leeds. Glenn Roeder was manager. We had a good team; Joe Cole, Trevor Sinclair, Les Ferdinand came in.
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“Paolo got injured, so he went to Italy. He goes to his own physios, fair enough! He’s come back a few days before the game. Because he’s Paolo Di Canio, no one has ever put him on the bench. He said, ‘I’m fit, I’m ready to go.’
“Les Ferdinand knocked on Glenn Roeder’s door. ‘[Jermain] and I are playing tomorrow. We’re doing well and scoring goals.’ Les said that to Glenn. ‘You can’t put [Paolo] back in the team. If you put him back in the team, I am done.’ Les was 38, 39.
“So the manager goes, ‘You and Jermain are playing, obviously.’
“Changing room before the game, he pulled the flipchart back and it was Defoe and Ferdinand. He finished his team talk, and Paolo got up, took his washbag, said, ‘Di Canio don’t sit on the bench,’ and he was out. He walked out, gone, in his car, home.
“I remember when he came, people were like, ‘I can’t believe Harry has taken a chance on this guy after the incident with the referee.’ Even then, to be fair, Paolo was like, ‘The club didn’t support me, I’m never playing for them again. I’m done.’
“That’s what he was like.”
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