Crystal Palace icon Jason Puncheon on how his daughter's frank comment helped end his Premier League career, playing abroad and taking steps into management

Sometimes it takes an innocent remark from one of your children to make you understand.

Jason Puncheon will vouch for that. In 2019, the former Crystal Palace attacker didn’t think twice about moving his family abroad to prolong his playing career with a view to taking his first steps into management.

The fact Cyprus was the final destination helped, of course. Sun, sea and football: a dream combination.

Puncheon, on loan at Premier League Huddersfield at the time, knew his top-flight career was coming to an end in 2019.

But even then it took a heart-to-heart with his daughter to deliver the message.

‘Footballers know the reality,’ Puncheon told Mail Sport.

‘My career had peaked by then. I wasn’t going to join Manchester United and win the Premier League.

‘And to be honest, there wasn’t another Premier League option. If there was maybe I would have a different opinion.

‘I had Championship options but Cyprus gave me a chance to play for a team that was fighting for something and having a good life with my family. It was an option I wanted to take.

‘A few weeks earlier, my second youngest daughter, who is very quiet, said to me “Daddy why do you have to go away all the time?”.

‘It hit home. She was saying to me I wasn’t happy. I was up and down the country because my family were still in London and I was in Huddersfield for most of the week.

‘Throughout my career my kids have had to travel to games. They enjoyed the travelling. But that was hurtful.

‘I travelled six hours that day and just kept thinking about it what she said.

‘So I said my next move I would take as a family decision. Somewhere we could all go together and build a new life.’

That place was Paphos, where the temperature can 42 celsius in the summer.

He spent three seasons with Pafos FC before joining Anorthosis Famagusta for 12 months ahead of retiring in 2023.

By then, however, Puncheon already had his eye on a coaching career and was appointed manager of second division side Peyia 2014 before joining Limassol-based side AEZ Zakakiou, although the 38-year-old left the club earlier this year.

Puncheon is now looking for a route back into management and remains open-minded about working away from his home comforts.

‘Footballers should look at these opportunities and take them more than we turn them down because there’s so much to learn,’ Puncheon explains.

‘It was route into coaching for me because the reality is I’m not Steven Gerrard or Wayne Rooney.

‘Maybe Crystal Palace would have said to me at the end of playing career “come and take the U15s”.

‘But I thought if I go to Cyprus and make a name for myself it may be easier for me to step into coaching which as always the end goal.

‘Whereas in England, once I retired I would maybe be waiting forever.’

Having completed his UEFA A and B badges alongside Juan Pablo Angel, Djimi Traore and Carlton Cole - Puncheon puts his decision to move into coaching to former Palace boss Alan Pardew.

‘It was Alan who first planted the seed, he said I should start thinking about it because he believed I could be a coach,’ he explained.

‘Sam Allardyce and Roy Hodgson both said it to me, too - so that was good sign.

‘My first job with Peyia - it was all new to me - I was doing all the coaching, all the analysis, planning all the sessions.

‘The first four months, it was very hard to switch off. Even my missus said to me she wished I was still playing. It was so stressful.

‘Your brain is constantly working. It was intense. Then you find your feet and it becomes easier.

‘I look at management in the same way as I looked at playing: when you lose a game you are going to suffer for 24 hours.

‘But once those 24 hours are over you have to try and forget about it - do something to take you mind off it. Don’t dwell.

‘Monday is a new week and start again.

‘If you can’t play football with a smile on your face…we can’t always be robots. I try to give that energy to the players. When it’s serious, it serious.

‘But there’s time to have a laugh and joke. It’s managing that.

‘I’ve had managers who wanted us to be like robots - and eventually that situation fizzles out because there isn’t a human connection.

‘Football teams are like families. We are spending 80 percent of our lives with these people every day.’

Puncheon is on the look out for his next family.