by Forever Blue » Wed Nov 14, 2018 7:07 am
That phrase again.
The impression I get from what I've heard so far is Koumas actually had very few friends in football, with Cotterill another former colleague who hasn't kept in touch.
"I think he had his own mates outside of football really. He didn't really go out with team-mates very often and preferred hanging out with his friends," he says.
Not having ties within the game has undoubtedly helped Koumas stay off the radar, although Cotterill rightly reminds me Koumas doesn't have to justify his absence from the media spotlight to anyone.
"Just because you're a footballer doesn't mean you have to stay in the public eye."
The Instagram page
Perhaps what makes Koumas' ability to avoid the spotlight all the more impressive is the fact that even in the age of social media, he manages to give very little away.
A Twitter profile under this name hasn't been updated since 2011, while a Facebook page bearing his name lists his workplace as 'sex, sex and more sex'. It seems unlikely.
His Instagram page is predictably placed on a private setting, but a friend request sent in hope is surprisingly accepted. A response to a message asking for a chat is, however, unsurprisingly ignored.
A trawl through Koumas' Instagram page sees the same faces cropping up time and time again. As Cotterill suggested, it's obvious Jason has a strong, tightly-knit group of friends, but none of them appear to have much of a connection to football.
I send them all a message. No reply.
Despite those frustrations, Jason's Instagram shows he's still obsessed with the game, particularly his beloved Liverpool.
Not only is there a tribute post to his old pal Gerrard, there's also a post from 2015, shortly after Koumas announced his retirement, showing tickets for the Reds' trip to Old Trafford along with a comment voicing his frustration at Brendan Rodgers.
"F***ing Rodgers is doing my head in, he needs to go," he writes. Perhaps a little harsh on the former Swansea boss, but hardly indicative of someone with the passive interest in the game that some have portrayed.
I'm no closer to finding him, but at least now I have small snapshot into what he's up to.
Koumas was immensely popular among Wales fans
The agent
"If I'm being honest, I'd prefer all my players to be like Jason Koumas, to go and do their talking on the pitch rather than in the papers. I don't like to see players thinking they have to be in the press."
After a bit of digging, I manage to find a number for Jason's former agent, who's worked with him for around 20 years.
He confirms Koumas is still living in the Merseyside area and agrees with many of the assessments I've heard about his career, even admitting himself that "Jason perhaps struggled with the limelight". He categorically rejects any assertion Koumas didn't enjoy football though, believing his unwillingness to open up meant he was often misunderstood by critics.
"I think where a lot of people don't get Jason is how quiet he actually is," he explains.
"He's a really nice lad but a private lad too, and I think people mistake that for arrogance.
"He's very close to his family, he comes from a very closely-knit family, especially his brother and also his uncle, who essentially brought him up.
"So once training had finished or a game had finished, he couldn't wait to get back home and be with them and I think that perhaps rubbed people up the wrong way."
"But as a player some of the stuff he could do was magical, he just didn't like the circus that went round it."
It turns out he's still in touch with the man himself and gets Liverpool match tickets for him and his friends most weeks.
He reads out a number.
After weeks of digging and searching, I finally have a direct line to Jason Koumas.
The phone call
I dial the number and nervously wait. It's ringing.
First comes a pause, the the voice. Sure enough I'm speaking to the man himself.
"I'm just at a football tournament mate, can I call you back?" he says.
Football tournament? It turns out he's now spending a lot of his time coaching his two sons, both of whom are promising footballers.
One is even on the books of the Liverpool academy after signing on at the age of 11.
"They love football and Jason loves football", his agent tells me.
It sounds like a good arrangement for Koumas. Bestow all he knows on to his two sons and catch a Liverpool game at the weekend, all while staying out of the glare of the public eye.
I wait for Koumas to return my call that day.
He doesn't.
I give him another text just a few days later, he tells me that he's "down in London with the missus for a few days" and promises to drop me a line the following weekend.
He doesn't.
I go back to his former agent in the hope he can maybe give him a nudge, although he tells me I'd have to "catch him in the right mood" if he's ever going to talk to me properly.
He still sounds reasonably positive about a chat happening, even going so far as float the idea of a face-to-face meeting up at his Merseyside office.
Then, a couple of weeks and a few ignored texts and voicemail messages later, Koumas finally gets back to me.
It's not good news - for me anyway.
"Hi mate, sorry I'm away at the minute. I'm just too busy at the moment to do anything with being away so much with my lads etc.
"I have too much on, plus I like to keep my private life private if that's okay.
It sounds like a polite 'p*** off', which is fair enough really, although he doesn't exactly close the book on an interview completely.
"Get in touch after Christmas if you still want something doing and we'll sort," he says.
It's bitterly disappointing, but from what I've learned about Koumas, not at all surprising.
He's clearly a man who does things on his terms.
Perhaps that was why he did apparently find it so hard to cope with the limelight. After all, footballers are granted little to no control over what's being written about them, and many of the commitments off the pitch are not exactly voluntary.
But even if he did have trouble with it all, I don't really get the feeling he's left pondering on all the 'what ifs' that so many outsiders seem to so desperately want to attach to his career.
"Whatever people wrote about him was often water off a duck's back," his former agent adds. "I don't think he put pressure on himself or beat himself up.
"If he was slaughtered for having a bad game, or praised for a good game, he would treat both the same."
Perhaps that's just it. Maybe, it all boils down to that one point. Maybe, even now at the age of 39, beneath the quiet and reserved exterior, Jason Koumas simply doesn't care what we think.
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