Kante’s route leads to the top

TITLE NO.2: Kante with the Premier League Trophy in 2017 after moving to Chelsea from Leicester

NINE years ago, N’golo Kante could only watch Chelsea winning the Champions League and dream.

He was playing for Boulogne’s reserves and made his firstteam debut on May 18, 2012, having been rejected by Paris St-germain, Sochaux, Rennes and Lorient for being too small.

Just 24 hours later, Chelsea won the European Cup in Munich.

Now, Kante has realised his childhood dream with

Chelsea back in another Champions League Final.

“Nine years ago, when I was playing for the reserves at Boulogne and made my professional debut in Ligue 2, I was very hungry and very hopeful in football,” he said.

“I didn’t know how far I could go, I just wanted to turn pro and do my best. To have got where I am today with Chelsea and to be lucky enough to play in a Champions League Final, bearing in mind everything that’s happened in the meantime, is amazing. It’s happened little by little, season after season, with wins, with losses, with joy and with disappointment.

“It’s shaped me as a player, and I think that it’s helped me become the player that I am today.”

Kante worked his way up from the ninth tier in French football, joining Caen in 2013 where Leicester spotted him. The defensive midfielder became a phenomenon, winning the title with the Foxes and joining Chelsea a year later in 2017, where he won the Premier League again. It was the early rejections that shaped Kante’s career.

He added: “I had a good number of trials growing up. I was turned down several times by academies. I didn’t see those as failures, personally, but as opportunities to see how I compared to the academy level.

“At that time, I wasn’t telling myself that I had to go through an academy to turn professional.

“I was just thinking that I had to give my best no matter what happened and that I’d succeed at a later stage or in a different way.”