T
here will be those tempted to hear Dele Alli speak and view him, even sympathetically, as a lost boy. To see a damaged person who could not escape his past as it chased him down and ruined him.
And it is painful, hearing his story. It is painful hearing recollections of abuse, and neglect, and exploitation; of how not even a career at football’s pinnacle could ultimately keep those demons at bay. The memories, the anger, the self-doubt he kept hidden. “I was brave, I wasn’t fearless,” he clarifies at one point, and he’s right, there is a distinction.
Yet Dele has one blessing as he begins to enter this next stage. It is not over. His young life, his career; he is a 27-year-old
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