AFCON 2023

‘It seems like I’m at home,’ Caulker says of Sierra Leone’s AFCON trip.

"Over the previous ten years, it's been quite a colorful story," he acknowledges.

Steven Caulker ponders his journey from the Premier League and the England team to representing Sierra Leone in the Africa Cup of Nations outside a hotel on the slopes of Mount Cameroon.

“Over the previous ten years, it’s been quite a colorful story,” he acknowledges.

He earned his England debut at the age of 20 in 2012, scoring in a 4-2 defeat to Sweden.

Wilfried Zaha was one of England’s other debutants that night, but he and Caulker were on opposite sides last weekend when Sierra Leone drew 2-2 with the Ivory Coast in Douala.

“I had a little chat with him and he congratulated me on my comeback to the Premier League,” Caulker said.

“My life has been full of ups and downs. It’s been a long road. We’ve both gone in different directions.”

Caulker appeared in the Premier League 123 times, most notably for Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool, but his career was cut short due to well-documented mental health issues and addiction struggles.

Since then, he has renewed his career, first in Scotland and now with Gaziantep in Turkey.

He also heeded the call to represent a Sierra Leone team that is rated 108th in the world and for whom he qualifies through his grandpa, despite the fact that he is just 30 years old.

Caulker had visited Sierra Leone on multiple occasions to do charity work and had fallen in love with the west African country, but it was another ex-England star with ties to Sierra Leone who was the focus of attention.

“I felt such a love and warmth from the country when I first visited that I wanted to contribute more, and that has increased over time,” Caulker adds.

“I received an Instagram message from Carlton Cole in the summer asking if I was interested and that he could put me in touch, so I chatted with the coach and the president, and they sold me on the dream.”

He is currently in Buea, in Cameroon’s turbulent anglophone southwest, with his Sierra Leone team-mates, having only played for England in a friendly.

Sierra Leone is ready for their match against Equatorial Guinea on Thursday, when a win will advance them to the last 16 after they defeated both incumbent champions.

A BRAND NEW START

Caulker is Sierra Leone’s biggest star, and his coach, John Keister, says his impact has been revolutionary.

“We’re overjoyed to have him here. “It just provides us another 30, 40, or 50%,” Keister explains.

“To have someone at that level make such a significant decision to come and represent Sierra Leone, a small country, says a lot about the individual.”

Caulker appears to be more at ease in his current circumstances than he would be in a Premier League locker room.

“We care about one other and respect each other.” I had it at clubs during my tenure in the Premier League, and I also had a different experience where there were a few egos going around. That can be a difficult task.

“It can be difficult to fit in at times, but here I truly feel at ease.”

Caulker has been honest about how he lost a lot of money gambling and battled alcoholism, but he believes football can do a lot more to aid those who are going through similar problems.

“It has improved in terms of talking about it, but I don’t see any action.” There are still a lot of guys who come to me in confidence when they’re having trouble.

“I believe that is a tragic scenario.”

Caulker spent several months in 2018 training alone, believing that clubs were hesitant to recruit him because of his shady past.

Then came the opportunity to relocate to Alanyaspor in Turkey for a fresh start.

 

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