It is 10 p.m. in a damp Hanoi, where FC Seoul went for the preseason for warm weather, and Jesse Lingard is talking about the need to return to the Asian Champions League. “You want to play the Saudi teams,” he is enthusiastic.
It is a different life and a new life. Lingard says he feels “lively and bubbles”, teammates describe him in general. It is only recently that that has not been a description that has always been mounted. Certainly not when he was in tears while he last drove away from Manchester United. Certainly not when he felt “suffocated” by the hardships of the modern game.
It is an acute relevant theme, in the midst of constant discussion about a tiring calendar. Lingard's experience can become a more common story, because many more players are talking about almost a six-month break of the elite level.
He has been in Korea for a year now, a period that he has found 'great'.
“I didn't know what to expect, but seeing love and appreciation really put me down and got my confidence,” Lingard tells The Independent.
Lingard is an admirable example of a player who throws himself in a different experience. He is enthusiastic about life on the river and local cuisine. Lingard shows off a Korean in one of the most important talk shows in the country and is an ambassador for North Face. That all comes from a status such as “the most important signing of the K League”, with which he has driven FC Seoul back to the Champions League for the first time since 2019. An early period in which coach Kim Gi-Dong criticized his work channels.
At that time, Lingard was still adjusting a period of six months without a club, but eventually needed a knee operation.
“Then I finally settled,” he says. “I started to get a few assists, a few goals and your self -confidence goes up.”
That sharpness was crucial because Lingard found the K League 'intense and physical'.
He has found the free time because he looks constantly from Seoul.
“If people ask for photos, I always try. And you know, when you're done with your career, and you don't get the applause you are used to, it can really touch you. I feel like just enjoying every moment. “
It is a statement that stands out, especially in addition to many moments when Lingard mentions 'trust'.
There is a natural question about his relationship with Elite Voetbal, especially how far he has taken away from the center of sport.
Despite the current perceptions, Lingard has a career that would be the most jealous. He has made himself part of football history by scoring the match winner in a FA Cup final, and that for his boys' club, Manchester United. He was a fixture in the game-changing run from England to the semi-final of the World Cup 2018. Lingard later became one of the most sought after players outside the elite after delivering West Ham United to survive in 2020-21. Only for a sudden drop-off.
A enchantment in Nottingham Forest ended acid, although Lingard mainly attributes his shape to injury. Many of the attributes of modern football started to exert a weight. Lingard, for his part, does not raise such hardships himself. He is reflective when asked if he just needed a break.
“It's intense. You are constantly on schedule, away in hotels. It is a very controlled sport, “he notes.
“Look, I would never take it for granted. I like playing football. But everything that goes with it, you have to be strong enough to deal with it. “
That is why Lingard's repeated use of the word 'trust' is striking. His self -confidence had been towering after nine goals in 16 games on loan for West Ham, only for him to immediately return to Old Trafford and to face old problems. When 28 years old, he was not visible in a single Premier League match under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in 2020-21.
“Being in the same environment for a long time … It stifles you a bit,” Lingard initially says. “You have always received a number of ups and downs in football. You must be mentally strong. And, you know, sometimes at United, I wasn't. Things happen from the field that you can't really control … It influences you on the field.
“I spoke with Ole and a few employees and they understood it because they are also human.
“It comes at a certain point where, when you don't play regularly, you don't just sit there for the money.”
So he went to the forest.
“I was really degraded and locked up at that time. You expect to play the way I played, when you return to your home club. That clearly did not happen. You get frustrated. My application in training every day was always 100 percent, you know … but you come where you have to leave at a certain time.
“The last day I cried on my way home … To leave was clearly emotional, but it was what I had to do.”
There is still a love for United.
“Playing for that badge week in, week out is one of the best feelings I have had.”
Extending forest, in the summer of 2023, led to what many would consider as his worst months in the game. Lingard was without a club for half a year. In September he was exiled for 18 months to drive after he was found guilty of driving drinks. In November, the most painful, he suffered the death of the grandmother whose house he grew up.
He now looks back philosophically at that period.
“I was at home with my family and my Nan was not good,” Lingard reveals. “At that moment I felt that it was only God and said,” Be with your family, enjoy the time of the family. “
“Then, go to Dubai for a training camp in December and prepare for January. Just being strict with that. I feel that it all just played a role. “
He applies a similar philosophy to previous experiences, such as how warm he talks about former manager Jose Mourinho.
“Mourinho was sometimes so cooled. He was facetime from his room in the Lowry [hotel]Ask me what I do. I thought that was a real trust.
“During that season, in the run -up to the 2018 World Cup, Jose played me the most games … It was a big season. And you know, to the World Cup, you don't expect to start. But Gareth Southgate had a lot of faith in me from a young age and I played every game. “
The only melancholy is, as Lingard says, “what could be”. He thinks England could and should have defeated Croatia in that semi -final.
“Maybe a little more faith on our side,” he says and then left out.
Lingard sounds like he has since been in his most cheerful form.
“Even though I am far away from my family and my daughter, last year I had fantastic,” he says. 'My daughter and family came out. It was good. Sometimes it is good to just get away and have a little change. I am still happy with football, wherever I am. “
Going to the other side of the world has made that all the clearer.
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