Jamie Vardy’s rise from non-league to the top of the Premier League goalscoring charts has been well documented.
The Sheffield-born forward’s meteoric rise from his time at Stocksbridge Park Steels is one of the best stories of the Premier League era and this summer, the 29 year old will no doubt head to the European Championships in France, flying the flag for non-league – and for England.
So impressive has Vardy’s form been this season that odds for him to be included in the squad are now as low as 1/16 – quite astonishing for a player of his age who is yet to score an international goal. Even more astonishing when you consider that when he was first selected in the squad for the friendly against the Republic of Ireland last year, some pundits and supporters were left baffled by his inclusion.
Clearly, Three Lions boss Roy Hodgson saw something we didn’t. 18 goals in 24 Premier League matches later and you have to wonder whether the England manager can afford to leave the Leicester City striker out of his starting line-up, never mind the squad.
Perhaps the excellent recent form of Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney and Tottenham Hotspur’s Harry Kane will make this one of Hodgson’s main selection headaches ahead of England’s first match of the tournament against Russia in Marseille on June 11th.
Rooney is the nation’s highest scoring international player of all time and Harry Kane is viewed as a potential golden boy for a new generation of promising youngsters, so perhaps it’s understandable that Vardy is out at 15/8 to start at the Stade Velodrome. But we’ve almost come to expect Vardy to beat the odds now, and that’s why many Euro 2016 tipsters have him down as one of the key pre-tournament players to start that fixture.
If you’re backing Vardy to not only start that game, but to go on and take the tournament by storm, then he’s priced at around 4/1 to be England’s top goal-scorer and his price to be the tournament top goalscorer ranges from 33/1 all the way up to 66/1. Perhaps this range indicates just how much of an unknown quantity Vardy is, going into this tournament.
One thing is for sure, no matter what happens in France this summer, Jamie Vardy has become a source of inspiration to young players across non-league. Foxes coach Claudio Ranieri has praised his star striker’s dedication time and again this season – we don’t doubt that there are a few non-league stars who with the right mix of talent and dedication, could be following Vardy’s example in the coming years.
