Former Aberdeen loanee James Maddison has been rewarded for his early-season form for Leicester City with his first England senior call-up.
Gareth Southgate picked Maddison, alongside fellow debutants Jadon Sancho and Mason Mount, in his scored for the Uefa Nations League games against Croatia and Spain.
Maddison joined Leicester from Norwich City in the summer for a fee in the region of £20 million and has scored three times in seven games for Claude Puel’s side.
The 21-year-old played 17 times for the Dons during the first half of the 2016-17 campaign and scored twice, including a last-minute winner against Rangers at Pittodrie.
He was signed by Norwich from Coventry City in early 2016, before joining Aberdeen for the start of the following season. Upon the end of his loan, he went on to cement himself as a Carrow Road regular under Daniel Farke.
Dons manager Derek McInnes spoke fondly of Maddison in the summer, in the wake of his move to Leicester.
He said: “He’s a game-changer who can produce something and make all the difference in a game. James is one of a select type of footballer that is capable of producing big moments.
“When you start to look at those types of players as you go up the levels, you pay big money for them as Leicester have shown.
“A lot of managers have asked me about James as people are always looking for that type of player and he has a valuation because he’s in that special bracket.
“Whether it’s a pass, a turn, a shot or a goal, he was just a player who handles the ball fantastically well. I said at the time that he was a technician of the game and that has been shown to be the case.
“Having worked with him, that was evident every single day.”