For Declan Rice, if there was a precise moment the penny dropped, it came three minutes and 57 seconds into the final of Euro 2020.
England were already leading Italy at Wembley when Rice controlled an awkward ball, held off Lorenzo Insigne and played a neat pass around the corner to Mason Mount.
England’s anchor knew then that he would have another good game, this time on the biggest stage possible, and his performance added to a growing belief that he had become, in his own words, “one of the established top players around the world”.
Looking back, the West Ham midfielder sees the Euros as a transition from promising young player to leading international star, but says his outstanding form this season is only “a little bit” of his full potential.
“In the final, after I had my first touch, I knew I was going to have a good game because I was so up for it: driving with the ball, winning tackles, making good passes forward,” Rice told Standard Sport, after being named Premier League Player of the Year at Thursday night’s London Football Awards.
“Even though we lost that game — and it was probably the worst moment of my career — I took a positive from it that I can perform like that on the big stage.
“I remember our first game at Newcastle this season. I’d only had a two-week holiday. I played the first-half and wasn’t at the races, but the second-half I took it to the levels where I was in the Euros. The manager pulled me and said, ‘That’s where you need to stay at’. That’s what I’ve tried to do this season.
“I’ve just believed in myself a bit more. My brothers have always told me that my ability is incredible and I just need to show it more on the pitch.
“In the first couple of years at West Ham I was probably holding myself back because I was a young player, I didn’t want to make a mistake. I wanted to be on the good side of the fans, I wanted to be on the manager’s side.
“I feel like since the Euros, when I played really well, it has really spurred me on. And this season I’ve kind of thought, ‘You know what? I’ve got all this ability. I’m going to go out there and show it’. What you are seeing now is only a little bit of what’s to come.”
Rice’s continued progress is even more impressive, considering the difficulties of many of his England team-mates. He is arguably the only one of Gareth Southgate’s regulars not to have suffered from fatigue or loss of form at some point. Harry Kane has only found his rhythm since the turn of the year and Harry Maguire is still struggling.
Rice says he was motivated to kick on by West Ham’s first-ever European group stage campaign, with the Hammers set to face Sevilla in Europa League last-16.
“I’ve always recovered from setbacks quite well as a kid,” Rice said. “I’ve had loads of setbacks in my career. That Euros final was one, but I knew this season was going to be key for me because West Ham are in the Europa League, we are going to be judged on how we are playing in the Premier League, in all the competitions, so I knew I had to up my game.
“Frequent conversations with the manager, people like Mark Noble, the older lads, they are really supportive and when they tell me I’m playing well and training well it really kicks me on to go again.”
Rice’s soaring self-belief and desire to win trophies and play in the Champions League “as urgently as possible” raises further doubts about his West Ham future, and increasingly the question is whether the club can match his level and ambition. He sees the two-legged tie with Sevilla as an acid test of the club’s progress.
As a club, Europe is where we want to stay and I know the manager will be demanding that.
“If you look at the really big clubs over the years that have really kicked on — top four, winning trophies — they’ve dealt with big European nights, big losses, big wins,” he said.
“As a club, we are having that first taste of Europe and it is incredible. It is really, really good. The buzz around it for the fans, for the players, is special. As a club, that’s where we want to stay, that’s where we want to push to and I know the manager will be demanding that as well.”
Even as he develops into an elite player, a first European knockout match remains the stuff of dreams for Rice, and he credits David Moyes — who last night won Manager of the Year for the second season running — with helping him go to the next level.
“He is constantly demanding the best,” Rice said. “He is not scared to tell you whether you are having a bad game, whether you are training bad, whether you need to improve in different areas.
“His team of staff around him are constantly pulling you to watch different clips and seeing how you can improve. He is not one that is happy with a win. We’ll always go into it with full detail and I think that’s the reason why we keep progressing as well as we have.
“We know what the manager has done. We were fighting relegation and the objective that season was just to stay in the Premier League and build the season after — and we did that.
“We really pushed on and credit to the manager, the staff and all the players who pulled together and achieved what we wanted to achieve. We are in the Europa League, big game against Sevilla coming up. It is everything we’ve all dreamed of.”
