‘To go from League Two to scoring that goal for England in 10 years, you don’t get that without riding the wave perfectly. He’s optimised every opportunity’: Ollie Watkins' rise from Exeter City to England heroics relied on one crucial change

Ollie Watkins sent England into raptures when bagging in the 90th minute against the Netherlands in the semi-finals of Euro 2024, but that moment may have never happened if it wasn't for a key positional change earlier in his career.

A left-winger by trade in the Exeter City youth teams, then first team manager Paul Tisdale highlights that, while Watkins stood out from other players in his age group, he was by no means a boy wonder ready to take the senior side by storm.

In fact, he was five months past his 18th birthday when making his League Two debut, a cameo in the final game of the 2013/14 season. By December 2014, he had added just two more league appearances. His loan spell to Weston-super-Mare has since been well-documented, but it's what happened there that Tisdale highlights had such a transformative effect on his career.

Ollie Watkins had to become more involved to reach his true potential

“I’d have first known about Ollie when he was 14,” Tisdale tells FFT. “I didn’t coach him at that age, but I was privy to the players that were coming through the system.

“He went to Weston-super-Mare when he was still trying to work his game out – he was probably thinking too much. I went to see him on a few occasions. He was playing largely on the left wing at that point, and what became clear was he needed to change position. That’s a critical moment in a young person’s development, when there’s suddenly an understanding of what and how they need to play in order to be selectable. Ollie was not going to make it as a left-winger, in my opinion.

“The engine that drove his game was his work rate, so being involved, talking metaphorically, turned his engine on. Sometimes, I didn’t think standing out on the touchline fired his engine often enough, and parts of his game were left dormant. But as a striker, he could run and affect the game with his work rate – he was always part of the action.”

After 10 goals in 25 outings for the Seagulls, Watkins returned to St James Park in the summer of 2015 ready to take his first-team opportunity, yet had to wait two and a half months to even make the bench. In March, he exploded, scoring four goals in six outings to win the Football League’s Young Player of the Month award. A brace in the Devon Derby against Plymouth began April.

“In the space of two or three months, he went from a young player who hadn’t had a chance to someone getting picked every week,” Tisdale recalls. “He earned my trust by taking his opportunities and eventually became a regular selection.”

Watching the striker score the winner in Dortmund, his former boss at Exeter couldn’t help but smile.

“I feel immense pride about it,” Tisdale adds. “He came across the Exeter City environment at the right time, then he went to Brentford and that was perfect for him. He went to Villa, learned and developed – for someone from League Two to score that goal for England in the space of 10 years, you don’t get that without riding the wave perfectly. He’s optimised every opportunity he’s had.”