In the early moments of England’s opening Euro 2024 match with Serbia, there was a moment of nervousness.
After a long clearance bounced towards Dusan Vlahovic, the Juventus forward darted forward and forced a rushed attempt at a clearance from an England centre-half. The latter was quickly urged by his defensive partner to stay focused.
The assumption might be that it was the 30-year-old, 73-cap John Stones offering reassurance to Marc Guehi, making his major tournament debut at 23 in what was only his 12th England appearance. In fact, it was Guehi who was acting as the calming influence.
England’s scratchy performance in Sunday’s 1-0 win may not have convinced many onlookers, but there was unanimous praise for Guehi’s display, particularly his mentality.
Jude Bellingham, who scored the goal, called him “unbelievable”, while head coach Gareth Southgate referenced how he had simply carried his domestic form for Crystal Palace to a new level. “He reads the game well, uses the ball well (and) was aggressive in challenges,” Southgate said. “This game was a big test, and he came through really strongly.”
Guehi was not fazed by Vlahovic on Sunday (Ina Fassbender/AFP via Getty Images)
Pundits’ plaudits flowed freely, too. Former England goalkeeper Joe Hart said Guehi had been “decisive, comfortable and confident”, while Micah Richards was startled by his poise. “It must be daunting to enter your first major tournament at times,” he told the BBC. “But he did not show it at all.”
Yet there should have been no doubt. Those who know him well say Guehi has always had a maturity beyond his years and while his senior international experience may be limited — Serbia was just his 10th start — he has extensive knowledge of the England system, having won caps across every age group.
Neither is this his first major tournament. In May 2017, he captained England Under-17s at that age group’s European Championship. Leading Spain 2-1 in the final with seconds remaining, they were on course to make England the first country to win the tournament for a third time. But Nacho Diaz equalised, the game went to a penalty shootout, two England players missed their kicks and Spain were the ones who lifted the trophy.
Painful as it was, for Guehi it was the start of a journey of redemption. Five months later, the same team were preparing for the Under-17s World Cup in India and his attitude set the tone for what proved to be a triumphant campaign.
“We had a prep camp in Mumbai,” Steve Cooper, then England’s Under-17 head coach, tells The Athletic. “We did goals setting and objectives meetings. With Marc, you could tell he would have thought through what might need to be said and what he was feeling.
“I remember him coming up with the word ‘redemption’, because we didn’t win the Euros — we were fantastic, but we didn’t win and should have. He talked about the importance of redemption and bouncing back.
England Under-17s – including Guehi (second right, back row) – arrive home with the 2017 World Cup (Steven Paston/PA Images via Getty Images)
“It had a really positive impact on the group and stuck. It was a great reference point for me as a coach, the players and staff to use that word. It was a really powerful, hard-hitting moment that became really motivating and it lasted the test of the tournament.
“I could tell he’d come into that camp thinking about that. He’s a really reflective guy, he likes to plan and prepare.”
Guehi has been a stalwart at Palace since joining from Chelsea in summer 2021 but, while he has won many admirers, Sunday was the first time he had made a major impression on more casual observers. Even then, his surname was frequently pronounced incorrectly on the BBC’s coverage of the game — for the record, it is Gay-ee, not Gay-hee.
Guehi was born in the Ivory Coast capital of Abidjan, his parents’ home city, before they moved to London when he was a year old. His father, John, is a lay preacher and Guehi used to play drums at his dad’s local Sunday morning church service. Faith remains an important part of his life and perhaps helps explain his humble character.
“He was so serious and determined,” says Steve Owen, who coached him for four years at south-east London non-League club Cray Wanderers and brought him into Chelsea’s pre-academy. “He’s very focused on what he does. I’m still looking at the same player I had as a kid.
“I was doing dinner-time sessions at Marvels Lane Primary School, with years five and six – the older kids. He was in year two or three and used to look through the fence from another playground. I let him sneak in and he would hold his own playing against our kids, if not push himself on a bit more. He’s a lovely fella and conducts himself in the right way.
“We used to do half-term soccer courses and I’d say, ‘Marc, go up front (as a striker) and enjoy yourself’. He said, ‘No, I’m a defender, Steve, I’m staying here’.
“He didn’t really talk a lot, but I used him as an example: ‘This is how you play, this is how you conduct yourself on the pitch’. He didn’t argue with officials. He was above and beyond any other child I coached at his age group.”
Guehi’s leadership skills are well-established. He captained England at those Under-17 Euros and at under-21s level, and did the job in the Premier League with Palace, where he was handed the armband for the first time by then manager Patrick Vieira in February 2022, when he was 21 and just seven months after his £18million ($22.8m) transfer across London.
Guehi tussles with Tottenham’s Harry Kane, now an England team-mate, in 2021 (Paul Harding/Getty Images)
Yet he refused the club’s captaincy at first.
“I said no out of respect for the (senior) players there,” he told the Palace website last year. “I didn’t feel like I could or should take it because there are players that have had bigger careers than mine, played football for longer than me and are senior members in the team.” But conversations with Luka Milivojevic and James McArthur, who had both captained the side, persuaded him to accept.
“I had to go around making sure it was OK for me to have it. You never know how people will react when they see a younger lad take the captain’s armband. For some people, it doesn’t mean too much and for some people, it means a lot. One of the reasons I was up for it is I was myself.”
He was Vieira’s player of the season in 2021-22, while his successor Roy Hodgson said Guehi could become a future England captain.
Yet none of these accolades seem to have changed him: he is regularly cited by those who work at Palace as being one of the nicest people at the club and just before leaving for these Euros, Guehi was chatting to the under-sevens back at Cray Wanderers, congratulating them on winning the Eze Invitational, a youth tournament organised by his club and now international team-mate Eberechi Eze.
With Cray Wanderers’ under-sevens after they won the Eze Invitational in May (Cray Wanderers FC)
“When Patrick Vieira made him captain at Palace, I was a bit surprised because he’s not talkative,” Owen says. “I can only assume that he leads by example at senior level. That’s what he did at Cray Wanderers.
“I said to the other kids, ‘Look at Marc, how he plays, holds his position, gets the ball, controls it and passes’. CPN — control, pass, move. That is something we try to instil in kids who really want to push on in football. He took everything on board at an early age.
“He’d get the ball back in the centre circle and say, ‘Let’s go again’. He wouldn’t celebrate until the end of the game. He couldn’t wait for the next game, and if we lost he didn’t get upset. It was always, ‘When’s the next one, Steve? When are we training again?’. He knew from an early age how to take the knocks and triumphs, but he had an old head at a young age.”
Cooper, who also managed Guehi at Championship club Swansea City on loan from Chelsea for a season and a half in 2020 and 2021, shares Owen’s perception. “He’s a very thoughtful man of good values, principles and self-worth — always very well-spoken, mature, concentrated, and present,” he says.
“If you said to Marc, ‘Let’s have a review and a one-to-one meeting’, he would come prepared with some notes and video clips to talk through. He was happy to guide the meetings himself and thought about what he wanted to get out of it. He was very mature and calm, clear about situations; in the present, but behind that he was confident, determined and assured.
“He is well respected and liked by his team-mates. Even though they were all the same age, they would look up to or rely on him for information or timings and he was a calming influence on everyone. He had leadership skills as a role model in a mature, selfless way.
“When he does speak, he has this very nice attribute of getting heard.”
Guehi intervenes for Swansea against Barnsley in 2021 (Michael Steele/Getty Images)
There was a moment after Swansea’s 2-1 aggregate win over Barnsley in the 2021 Championship play-off semi-finals which personifies Guehi. Handed the man of the match award for both legs by broadcasters Sky Sports, he reacted with genuine shock.
“You don’t think you should have won it?” he was asked in a post-match interview.
Guehi’s response, laughing in disbelief, was to reference his team-mates’ performances instead. “I don’t know how. The first time, I was really surprised and now it’s getting ridiculous. Everyone was fantastic. For me to get it again… I don’t know.”
Three years on, he is going to have to get used to accolades. He seems a certain starter at these Euros, where more performances like Sunday’s are certain to stir more transfer interest. Tottenham Hotspur are long-standing admirers of a player who has two years left on his current contract and has not yet entered into discussions over an extension.
Whatever happens, Guehi is unlikely to be distracted.
As Cooper puts it, “He never got too high or too low – he’s just a winner.”
(Top photos: Getty Images; Cray Wanderers FC)
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