UNITED TRIED TO BREAK ME
Zaha unbowed despite the pain of being ‘belittled’ at Old Trafford
“I should be in the Champions League. I’m missing out. I don’t want to be watching it at home”
remembers being ‘belittled’ in training by one United coach after scoring. On another occasion he was shown a video of himself in tricky winger mode for Palace and was asked how he could recapture that form, having already been told by Moyes to cut out the fancy footwork. ‘You see the mind games they were playing?’ a bewildered Zaha asks. Despite all this, Zaha continued to give Moyes the benefit of the doubt, accepting he would opt for experienced players as he tried to find his feet as Ferguson’s successor. ‘But when he took me out of the Champions League squad and put in Adnan Januzaj, who had never played for the first team, I knew then that this is way bigger than I ever thought and had gone way beyond footballing reasons,’ he says. ‘When it was not about football or ability, what could I do?’ This was not what Zaha had envisaged after meeting Ferguson and Bobby Charlton and discovering that United wanted him. Zaha was United’s standout player in 2013-14 pre-season under Moyes but was inexplicably frozen out until late October after starting in the Community Shield. By the time Zaha escaped to join Cardiff on loan in January 2014 he was a shadow of his former self. ‘They got a ghost of Wilfried Zaha at Cardiff,’ he said, despite impressing the Welsh club’s manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer with his application as he tried to get back on track. Zaha described what should have been a fresh start at United the following season under Louis van Gaal as ‘like being on trial at my own club.’ He remembers the Dutchman and his assistant Ryan Giggs saying they would decide his future based on the outcome of one training session. ‘Wayne Rooney said to me “you’ve trained the best”,’ Zaha recalls.
‘Then I go inside, have the meeting with them and they just said: “We just don’t think you’re good enough”. So I said “OK then, I just want to go on loan”.’
Zaha returned on loan to Palace and signed permanently in February 2015, having made only four appearances for United and played just 28 minutes in the Premier League as a substitute.
Zaha stresses he is now ‘over’ how things turned out. But with many using it to question whether he is cut out for life at the top, it is clear his side of the story needs considering before conclusions are drawn.
He says: ‘Not being given a fair opportunity to play at all and being called a flop is what hurt me even more. How can I be if I wasn’t given a fair chance?’
‘I see Kylian Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele, these types of players, and dribbling wise I’m up there with them but they have been given the platform to perform.
‘Every day I wanted to go on Twitter or Instagram and say something but I couldn’t. That would be unprofessional.’
But Zaha says he is a more rounded person for the ordeal.
‘I’m better prepared mentally to deal with any situation I’m faced with now. I was a little fish in a big pond. From that grind, going out on loan, nobody believing in me — I’ve built that self belief in myself.
‘The experience has given me even more and proved that I can do anything if I believe in myself. As long as I continue to work hard and
“Van Gaal and Giggs said: ‘We just don’t think you’re good enough’”
remain dedicated nothing will get in the way of me reaching my goals.’ SPEAKING a couple of days after winning an award for his charity work, Zaha starts to explain why he is so keen to give back. He is a fascinating, candid interviewee and just like he is on the pitch — passionate and animated, especially when something really matters to him.
He delivers a short, powerful monologue about why his upbringing is another big reason he will no longer let anything stop him chasing his dreams.
‘Football has changed my life, changed my family’s life,’ says Zaha who, along with his family, has donated generously to worthwhile causes in the UK and Ivory Coast throughout his career and has also set up his own foundation.
‘Even when I signed for Palace when I was eight I still had nothing. At all. My dad took me to training in cars that broke down all the time. We’d have to get out and push them. Then I got to the stage where I had to take the bus by myself. I couldn’t afford to buy boots, so I’d play in trainers on the grass or borrow boots from my friends.
‘So football, in a way, really saved our lives. We came from nothing. I’ve been through so much to get to where I am now for anything to stop me getting to that next level, or returning to that next level.
‘My story doesn’t stop here. I’m too ambitious. And not ambitious just to play for a top club but to win things at club level and with the Ivory Coast. To go to the next level and test myself properly.’
Zaha’s story already features the fairy tale of his journey since arriving in England from the Ivory Coast aged four, living a goal kick away from Selhurst Park and being inspired by its bright lights, to becoming the best player shining underneath them for Palace.
And the time has come, it seems, to start writing the next chapter.
Watching the recent Champions League action has only increased Zaha’s desire to return to the top level. ‘It gives me goosebumps seeing the crowds, amazing stadiums,’ he says.
‘When I’m seeing players I think, “what would I do in that predicament?”
‘I feel I can get to that stage, with the confidence I have and belief in my ability. I should be there. I’m missing out. I don’t just want to be at home watching it.
‘Real players, when the time comes, they’re the ones that step up. I want to be that player in the big game. I want to be competing at the highest level where there’s an opportunity to win trophies. That’s where I picture myself.’
Zaha has found the right environment at Palace to develop into the player Ferguson thought he could be, one ready to return to that ‘highest level’.
But a third productive season this term for 13th-placed Palace, including winning more Premier League penalties (six) than anyone else and being widely hailed as the best player outside the top six is enough. ‘I’d love those sort of compliments when I’m in a top-six club,’ says Zaha.
His personal ambitions dictate there will have to be life after his boyhood club but he will forever be emotionally attached to the south Londoners. ‘The people at Palace showed me crazy love,’ he says. ‘The most real fans in the Premier League. Throughout every game, no matter how I’m playing, if I’m going through bad spells, not scoring for a little while they will back you.’
Zaha would love to repay them by leading Palace into the Champions League but the reality is that is virtually impossible. Club and player have different goals and Zaha has hit a ceiling at Palace.
‘For me to be better, to achieve what I know I am capable of, I have to aim to play at the very highest level, to win trophies,’ he says. ‘I’m blessed to have come this far in my playing career, and I have so many people to thank for that. But I feel like there is so much more I have to offer.
‘I have to experience the Champions League. I just need the opportunity, that’s it. And I’ll do the rest.’