England’s Jarrad Branthwaite on playing for PSV and marking Erling Haaland: ‘I’ll learn for next time’

Jarrad Branthwaite might make his senior England debut against Brazil on Saturday, up against stars like Vinicius Jr and Endrick, and it is from this point that his remarkable career trajectory must now be measured. Last summer he was on the bench for England’s Under-21s watching others play ahead of him; go back another four years and Branthwaite was ready to give up football entirely.

He was a 15-year-old playing for his local club, Carlisle United, about to lose his academy contract after struggling with tendonitis for 18 months. Carlisle offered one final four-week trial to let him win back his place. It was his parents who encouraged their teenage son to give football one last try, with an arm round the shoulder and a kick up the backside.

“If it wasn’t for my mam and dad, I probably wouldn’t have carried on. In my mind I was thinking, ‘if they don’t want me now, what’s four weeks gonna do?’. But my dad gave me a training programme, and I stuck to that, and it helped me get a scholarship.”

Branthwaite has no idea what he would have done without football, and laughs at the idea that a burly northern lad might have instead joined the military. “I don’t think so,” he smiles. “All I wanted to do when I was young was football, football, football, and that happened. I didn’t know where to be, and then that’s where my dad stepped in and basically said, come on…”

He is sitting in a quiet room at St George’s Park, discussing his path from Cumbria to Wembley. Often footballers are different in the flesh from the character you see on the field, but Branthwaite is exuding all the same traits that make him an exceptional young defender: composure, a calm self-assurance, with that imposing physical presence.

Everything has happened at lightning speed. Carlisle kept him on and within three months he was playing in the first team, aged 16, under manager Steven Pressley, who Branthwaite still talks to today. “I wasn’t as tall, and I was skinny as well,” he remembers. “When you come up against League Two strikers who are tall and strong it’s difficult, but that’s where you learn. The manager believed in me.”

A professional contract followed, and then Everton came calling.

“I think I only played 15 games in League Two, so it was a big step up,” he says. “I went and sat down with Everton, and the pathway they were giving me, it seemed perfect.”

Everton sent him on loan to Blackburn and then Dutch club PSV Eindhoven, under manager Ruud van Nistelrooy. The move took Branthwaite out of his comfort zone – here was a young man living alone in a foreign country, trying to learn the language and make friends. Eventually he earned a consistent run in a team, one which would win the Dutch Cup on penalties, a happy memory even if he scored an own goal in the final.

“It was massive, I think that’s where it all started,” Branthwaite says of his time at PSV. “I went abroad and had new life experiences. I think it’s made me become more of a man and it enabled me to come back to the Premier League and play regularly after being abroad. I was 20 at the time and you have to learn on your own, stand on your own two feet. There’s nobody else to help you.”

This year has been a breakout campaign for Branthwaite in the Premier League, establishing himself alongside James Tarkowski in Everton’s defence. The stats show a Europe-leading defender when it comes to winning duels, and it is easy to see why. He is tall with a broad frame and a giant leg-span which provides the pace that is an increasingly essential tool for centre-backs at the highest level.

Those attributes meant his recent match-up with Erling Haaland was almost a fair fight, and not many defenders can say that. Branthwaite played brilliantly at the Etihad Stadium but in the crucial moment he slipped, and Haaland scored.

“It was obviously a great experience to play against him. I think you’ve got to be switched on at all times. He doesn’t come short for the ball, or get in the game, he stays on the back shoulder and he’ll make the runs. And once he gets a sniff of the goal, he’s head down and he’s powerful, and you can see in the goal he scored. I got a bit too tight, my feet clashed and he scored. You learn from those experiences that happen in games and I’ll learn for the next time.”

The journey has brought him to England and a possible debut, just three months before Euro 2024 begins. Branthwaite is up against more established names for a place in Gareth Southgate’s tournament squad but his left-footedness offers something different and it is not out of the question, with a convincing performance over the coming days and more of the same in the Premier League, that he might push his way into the final 23.

“[Southgate] said that after the season I’ve had, I’m here on merit with the performances I’ve put in. He told me to come in and be confident and do what I would do at club level for England … If you’d have said at the start of the season that I would be in the England squad then I probably wouldn’t have believed it, but that’s where I am now and I’m very happy to be here.

“For me it’s just about focusing on giving the best performances I can to be in contention for that squad. I think it has come at a good time to be in the squad now near the Euros, but all I can do is perform to the highest standard and give myself the best chance.”