Interview ‘There is no bad blood at Chelsea – I just had to move on’
Winger Samuel Iling-junior says he has no regrets about leaving the Premier League aged 16 and joining Juventus
Samuel Iling-junior describes his decision to leave Chelsea and join Juventus in 2020, when he was just 16, and during a pandemic, as “black and white”. It is a neat, if inadvertent, way of discussing playing for the Old Lady of Italian football, given their famous stripes.
But it was a far-from-simple choice. Not least because Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and Paris St-germain also made it clear they wanted to sign the winger once he had decided to leave Chelsea and the Premier League.
“It was all on the table and I just felt like the conversations I had with everyone at Juventus, it offered me the best opportunity,” Iling-junior, 20, says at the club’s futuristic training centre near the Allianz Stadium.
“They were very honest with me. It was like, ‘You do well and we will push you’ and that is what has happened. It’s what I wanted. I heard what I wanted to hear. I sat down with my family and we talked about it, ‘Do I stay at Chelsea or do I take a different path?’ We decided to take that different path and it has worked out unbelievably well.”
Even so, it was a big moment. Not just to quit Chelsea – where he had been since age eight – but England as well. “It was to learn a different way to play the game. I was young,” Iling-junior says. “I felt I could learn so many different things if I went to a different country. It also shows your independence.
“It’s important to be fearless, and especially on the pitch. When you go abroad, it might be just that one dribble that is the difference in a game, or the one pass you make.”
It helps that Iling-junior, whose parents are from the Democratic Republic of Congo, was willing to throw himself into Italian life. He prides himself on how quickly he learnt the language, and says he has become “maybe 25 per cent Italian now”.
Iling-junior talks wistfully about the routine he and his parents went through once he was scouted by Chelsea and had to make the journey across London. “I am a Highbury boy,” he says. It involved a dash with his mother, a nurse, who met him outside primary school, to get the 393 bus to Highbury station in north London, then down to Vauxhall and then the train to Cobham & Stoke d’abernon in Surrey. He trained from 5.15pm to 8pm and hoped to be in bed by 11.30pm.
“I did that Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays,” he says. On Saturday, his father, a computer engineer, would drive him. He worked night shifts so would sleep in the car while his son trained. At 14, Ilingjunior went into digs near Chelsea’s training ground, which helped prepare him for the move abroad.
“My mum and dad put everything on the line to get me into training, back home and ready for school the next day, and that constant repetition made me realise I had to give 100 per cent.
“My dad is my biggest motivator. He says, ‘It’s not done, there is still a lot to do. Don’t stop. Believe in yourself ’. He constantly reminds me. My mother is the other side, ‘You have done really well, don’t be down’. It’s a good balance.”
He reels off the names of those he played with at Chelsea, and who remain friends. “Jamal Musiala, Tino Livramento, Levi Colwill, and in my age group was Harvey Vale, Charlie Webster, Jude Soonsupbell, Lewis Bate.”
There is always a debate about whether young players have been given a fair chance at big Premier League clubs – and especially at Chelsea over the years. “I feel there is always a pathway everywhere,” Iling-junior says. “But sometimes players look at it and think, ‘Maybe this isn’t the right place for me’. I was always loved at Chelsea. There was never any bad blood at Chelsea … maybe it was time to move on. I could have stayed and it could have went well.”
Musiala left the year before him, joining Bayern Munich, and Ilingjunior is also close to Jude Bellingham, who joined Borussia Dortmund in the same summer he moved to Turin. Back then it felt unusual for English players to go overseas. Now there are 43 in European leagues and Iling-junior, who is in the England Under-21 squad for the European Championship qualifiers this month against Azerbaijan and Luxembourg, says there has been a positive response from the Football Association.
“If anything, I think they encourage it. They want you to play at a high level and get minutes and they will not hold you back. For me, the target is to push with the Under-21s and then try to get into the seniors. That’s the next step.”
At Juventus, Iling-junior first joined the under-23s in Serie C, but since December 2022 he has been with the first team. “It opens your eyes even more,” he says. “Every game you bleed for the badge, you give your all for the badge. Every team is coming at you 100 per cent.
“I want to be a top-class player, winning trophies, being an important part, making people remember, always making people happy. When they see my name I want them to have a smile on their face.”
Even so, he admits things have not been easy. Having made his Champions League debut in October 2022 – when he provided an assist – and later becoming only the third Englishman (after Johnny Jordan and David Platt) to score for Juventus in Serie A, Iling-junior has not played as often as he would like, which has led to speculation he may return to the Premier League.
“It’s not how I saw the trajectory going. But it’s also helped me take a step back. I can be upset or I can stay positive and continue training to try to get more minutes.
“I am just focused on being here and giving it my all. In the summer we will see what’s best for me and the club, because I need to be playing.”