Africa-Press – Lesotho. It is a scenario familiar to thousands of aspiring footballers around the world. Eberechi Eze, aged 13 and with tears in his eyes, was told he was not wanted by the club he dreamed of playing for – in his case, Arsenal.
For many of those young players, that rejection is the end of their football dream. Not, however, for the resilient Eze.
Following multiple failed trials and subsequent spells at Queens Park Rangers and Crystal Palace, the playmaker looks set to come home 14 years later – as an England international – in a £60m move.
“I know so many people who got released from one club, got released from Arsenal, and that was it – they stopped playing,” Eze told BBC Sport in May, days before scoring Palace’s winner in the FA Cup final against Manchester City.
“The fact I am in this position, I can only say ‘God, thank you’ because I could be anywhere doing anything.”
Eze was at Arsenal, the club he supported, for four years from the age of nine.
“Arsenal was everything,” he said. “Just to play there, to go in with the Arsenal badge and be the kid who plays for Arsenal, was special.
“Afterwards it became difficult. As a kid your identity is almost wrapped up in that. When you don’t have it…”
After Arsenal, Eze had spells in the youth set-ups at Fulham, Reading and Millwall.
“I remember playing at Fulham in a game against Arsenal. Speaking to the academy director after the game, I had tears ready to pour down my face,” Eze said.
“I remember he’s talking to me and because of what Arsenal meant to me at the time… tears, that’s it. But these are the things that shape who you are.”
These words will be music to Arsenal fans’ ears – especially as they look poised to snatch him from under the noses of Tottenham Hotspur.
Spurs had been close to signing him from Palace before the Gunners hijacked the move.
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