From the age of 8, Alex Scott used to leave school early on Fridays and travel with one of his parents to soccer practice.

It wasn’t a normal journey.

It involved flying from Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands near to the coast of northern France, to the English mainland where Scott would go to sessions with the academies of Southampton — a club then in the Premier League — and later Bournemouth.

More than a decade later, all that time and effort is paying off.

On Tuesday, Scott looked back fondly on that unusual start to his footballing life after joining up with the senior England squad for the first time — seven months ahead of the World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

“It took a lot for our parents, you know, the amount of money they were paying and the dedication t

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